if you begin to forget how poor you are, Christmas is here to make sure

[G_j]

you don't forget..

[Arugula Latte]

1. We're all supposed to be surprised on Xmas morning with new cars with giant bows on top, right?

[G_j]

2. the reminder is more of what one can't give to others.. nt

[99Forever]

4. Those that have...

... really don't get what we who don't, are about. They can't see anything but personal greed in what you were trying to message. Perhaps they should look within, to see just how distorted their perceptions are.

[G_j]

9. for most I think, not to be able to give hurts more

than than not getting.

[99Forever]

16. I couldn't agree more.

For me, it makes me dread the holiday season more each year. Being able to give was the best part.

[get the red out]

3. Those commercials drive me nuts

I always tell my husband that if I was presented with a Lexus with a bow on top on Christmas morning I'd be going off screaming about who the Hell was going to be making that car payment!

"He went to Jarrod" might even be more disturbing, like jewelry is the only thing us idiot women want in life; and that men are ignorant enough to buy into it. Sickening.

[Teamster Jeff]

8. +1

If I came home with jewelery for my wife she would call me a dumb ass and lock me out until I got the money back.

[AlexSatan]

20. +2

Agree completely

[Marrah_G]

22. And if my significant other REALLY loves me I will get a BIG SPARKLY DIAMOND

I hate tv during the holidays- I am glad we got rid of cable and just watch tv on the net.

[bluestateguy]

5. But Santa Claus is going to give toys to all the good boys and girls

[jberryhill]

6. Really, I'm down to buying only one Lexus this year

[grasswire]

7. I hear ya. nt

[SheilaT]

10. Once again I'm reminded of how fortunate I am that I don't have a TV

and I don't get to see all those wonderful commercials.

[marybourg]

11. +100!

[Incitatus]

12. But how are you going to know what you want and need if they don't tell you?

[SheilaT]

19. Oh. Oh. Oh. I hadn't thought about that.

Gosh, my life is blighted isn't it?

Actually, I do get fascinated by the commercials if I ever am somewhere that has a regular TV on. They tend to be much more interesting than the programming.

[CheapShotArtist]

15. You can still have a TV and just push the mute button whenever there's a commercial break.

[SheilaT]

23. Or, I can channel surf. But most of the time when I channel surfed

I would come across ads, a good 80% of the time. Okay, so I didn't actually time it that closely, but it really feels as if the ads are more than half of the programming.

But there's still an enormous amount of time wasted, if you have to sit there and twiddle your thumbs during the commercials. I do watch a reasonable amount of TV shows. It's just that I watch them over the internets. Hulu does have commercials, which is really annoying, but since I'm in front of my computer I just play solitaire. And there's still not as much time taken by the commercials on Hulu as on regular TV.

Netflix, no commercials.

When I watch Rachel from the MSNBC web site, there will be about two minutes of commercials, tops.

I am really, really spoiled by not having to watch commercials. Every so often when I'm in a hotel room, I'll turn on TV to see if there's a show on I want to watch. I might make it through one entire show before turning off the TV in disgust, again, because of the huge amount of time given over to commercials. I seem to recall that in the early days of cable, the promise was we'd pay a fee for the channel and there would be no commercials. Hmmmm.

[SomethingFishy]

13. Yep... my kids were warned that it's going to be

a really really light Christmas...

The cool thing is they didn't seem to mind...

[kentauros]

14. I've been giving biscotti and truffles as gifts for almost a decade.

It's easy, it's fun, and everyone loves food gifts

You can do such gifts on a budget or not. The only "drawback" is that it's time-consuming.

[get the red out]

17. Time

I LOVE knitting gifts for people, but there's that time thing involved. I have made a number of hand-knitted or crocheted gifts through the years though. It is really more fun that way.

[kentauros]

18. Maybe you could join the Guerilla Knitters

Thankfully, with baking and candy-making, the time issue is more about dedicating a couple of weekends or some weeknights to the craft. I'll be doing some early this coming weekend so I can ship them off to friends and family. That helps break up the whole amount. Plus, the truffles are only going to family members, once the bulk chocolate gets delivered

[AngryOldDem]

21. Only if you buy into the hype.

I don't, and I don't feel deprived or poor at all.