Christmas Gifts You Love (to Hate)
Zack Imus
Christmas. The most exciting and anticipated holiday of the year. A time when visions of sugar plums--or stereos, new cars, the latest computer, and various other desirable and expensive gifts--dance through our heads.
Unfortunately the reality of Christmas gift-giving is often a far cry from our visions. When we're children, it seems as the holidays approach that anything is possible. But as we mature and gain experience with this annual observance it eventually begins to dawn on us that it might not always be all it's cracked up to be. By the time we've reached our late teens--when, coincidentally, the potential for receiving truly outstanding gifts is optimized--we realize that
Christmas gifts are seldom
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Now some fruitcakes wouldn't qualify for this category. There are actually people in the world who spend months concocting 12-pound, liquor-filled, green-red-yellow speckled wonders (you wonder what's in them) as special gifts for their favorite relatives. This doesn't make them taste any better, but they do make great door- stops in the off-season. No, only department or drug store fruitcakes fall into this category.
Of course, not all "IDKWBY" gifts are culinary in nature. Calendars qualify, as do chia pets. Enough said.
It would be possible to list several other Christmas gift categories that would send a cold tingle up your spine. But rather than list any more of these,
I'd like to give you a few examples of really great gifts: Stereo components
(good quality), gold jewelry, an appropriate music C.D., gift certificates, and quality clothing.
But if you want to be absolutely certain your gift will be appreciated, go with cold, hard cash. The receiver is certain to experience the true
struck by a surprise when the whole family got what they wished for in the
To read a story that deals with this theme makes us realize that it is not everyone that can accomplish what they really want in their
Regret: a feeling of sadness, repentance, or disappointment over something that has happened or been done. Most people feel regret over past mistakes or missed opportunities. In A Christmas Carol, regret is dredged out of the main character through memories and visions of his life and others. Scrooge is taken on a journey with the Three Spirits to reclaim his life and change his ways. As Scrooge is forced to introspect by way of the Spirits, Dickens uses Scrooge’s regret help him see his mistakes and change his ways. The lessons Scrooge must learn in order to change his life are the importance of kindness and generosity and the dangers of greed and indifference.
Throughout A Christmas Carol, we see exemplary examples that generosity is more about the spirit in which something is given than the item itself, from the schoolmaster's offer of food and wine to a young Scrooge and his adoring young sister Fan, or the humble but merry celebration hosted by Mr. Fezziwig and his wife, or even Fred's offer of assistance to a grieving Bob Cratchit in a future that does not come to pass: as Bob says, “Now, it wasn't for the sake of anything he might be able to do for us,so much as for his kind way, that this was quite delightful. It really seemed as if he had known our Tiny Tim, and felt with us." Despite this, the glee exhibited by the family acts as a stark contrast to their circumstances, endorsing the notion that generosity involves more than the giving of money and that the price of giving ones love and kindness cannot be quantified.
...much as we claim to be grown we still make a lot of mistakes and when the opportunity to mess up presents itself we will probably take it without hesitation.
Christmas has consumed itself. At its conception, it was a fine idea, and I imagine that at one point its execution worked very much as it was intended to. These days, however, its meaning has been perverted; its true purpose ignored and replaced with a purpose imagined by those who merely go through the motions, without actually knowing why they do so.
to the fact that not everything is as well as it seems and that this
and by the end of his tale and the novel, we have gradually learnt to
But then there comes this sort of coming to light moment for the "shadows" of these things. These can either be a realization that the situation is one to be fond of or one that speaks to the doom the speakers and/or characters find themselves in.
Another example of a gift was when Pete Harris gives Joey the pocket knife for Christmas. When Pete Harris gives the pocket knife to Joey the pocket knife has Pete Harris’s initials but joey still was very grateful
Christmas is a special time of year that deserves to be remembered for its true meaning. Every year, Christmas becomes more and more commercialized and society forgets the origin of Christmas. It was not started with cookies, toys, and a fat man that delivers them, but instead it started with a humble inn where our Savior was born. The definition of Christmas is “a holiday on December 25 celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ.” Nowhere in that definition does it say anything about the outrageous pressure society has set on consumers to buy, buy, buy during the Christmas season. Christmas is about presence not presents.
Holidays have always been known to affect our consumer culture for many years, but how it all began eludes many people and very few studies have been completed on it. Even though some say that the subject is too broad to precisely identify how holidays, especially Christmas, directly affect our market, I have found that people’s values, expectations and rituals related to holidays can cause an excessive amount of spending among our society. Most people are unaware that over the centuries holidays have become such a profitable time of year for industries that they now starting to promote gift ideas on an average of a month and a half ahead of actual holiday dates to meet consumer demands.
One of my experience as a physical therapist that reminds me about was about receiving gifts which makes you feel special. However,
Emma, Marissa and I are in charge of the making the lefse. This has been our job ever since we were little girls, becoming experts through all our years of experience. My grandma makes the most amazing food and always has enough to feed us for a week. After we stuff ourselves full of delicious, lasagna, salads, and hot dishes all made with love and while the adults lean back comfortably in their chairs, us kids go put on our pajamas and troop downstairs to open our gifts. The most memorable gift would be the ring my grandma gave me that used to be my great-grandmothers who died a couple days after my grandma turned fifteen. My great-grandma loved to travel and had a great passion for fashion, so this circle of metal with a little diamond in the middle and a floral pattern surrounding it, had been bought in California and has been in the family since. “Bang, bang, bang!” A huge pounding comes from the front door. Dogs bark, adults grin, and we race to open the creaky door. Santa Claus, eyes twinkling, dressed in red with coal-black boots, and swinging a sack over his right shoulder, steps inside. He plops down heavily; ringing merry bells and passes them off to David, my brother, telling him seriously to keep ringing them so Rudolf won’t fly away without him. With wide eyes, little David shakes the bells with such rigor that if Rudolf was in the North Pole he would be able to hear them. We each take a turn perching on his knee, hesitant at first but then opening up and telling him our age and that, “yes we have been really, really, really good this year.” As Santa’s beard tickles our chin as we lean in close for a picture and his big belly shakes as he laughs at the same time as you start to giggle. Then he opens his sack and pulls out gifts wrapped in colorful paper for each of us. With a few cookies for the road, crumbs in his beard and a
As you know that Christmas is coming and all parents are planning gifts for their children. This is a difficult task to pick the gifts that would be appreciated by children. Boys rather less participate in these types of activities but girls are very conscious about gifts and toys. I am presenting here some ideas about what type of gifts you can buy and present to your daughter on the occasion of Christmas. So, have you decided a gift that will make her happy on the Christmas day?