Beginning the holiday dread...

I should begin by saying that I enjoy the holidays. I like the time spent with families, I like the time off from work and I like the general "spirit" and "flavor" of the season. I'm definitely happy that Starbucks has the pumpkin spice latte available again (although I'm certainly not going overboard and it is not as exciting as it once was now that I have found chai) and I am a fan in general of the cool fall weather.

But by the year, I am becoming less-enamored with christmas presents. I'm really not trying to sound scroogy...but the past few years, especially being responsible for presents for two sets of families, it has stopped being fun. More and more, I am feeling like Rudy and I just don't need that much stuff. And the things that we do need (clothes, home depot supplies and supplies for our various hobbys) are not the right kind of thing to put on a christmas list, other than the obviuos list of gift certificates. So I find that our lists are primarily CDs, DVDs and books. Now, these are things that we enjoy a lot, but it just seems kind of boring, and getting some family members to actually look at our amazon.com wishlists is just never going to happen.

Then there is the problem of getting presents for others. I like to get things that I know the recipient can find useful. Not something that just sits around or just looks pretty. And there is something bad about buying people food related presents when you know they don't really need them. Then, of course, there are Rudy's relatives who I have found to be impossible to shop for the past couple of years. They all seemed to like last year's gifts, but now I have to come up with more.

And yes, I did do some knitted presents last year and I can do more this year (not quite so last minute), but that's not going to last forever. And there are some people that I just can't come up with the *right* present for, knitted or not.

So, I guess there is a part of me that would like to say, "No presents, let's just all hang out." Or maybe "immediate family only."

Then there is the dilemma of friends (some of whom may be reading this). There is a part of me that would like to do more for my friends around the holidays, especially those that I haven't seen since the wedding and my relatively "new" Pittsburgh friends. But maybe I just need to do a better job with the holiday card (which was skipped last year) and do something for local friends that is less about "stuff" and more about spending time together.

This is all coming out because I need to buy yarn for the christmas presents that i know I want to make. I either need to make time for shopping in person (more fun) or do some online ordering soon. I need to get a move on with those...