God I wish this could be my family. The gift giving... is so needless. I'm a grown ass man and most things I do want I buy for myself, or are too expensive.

My family and I made the switch years ago to no gifts for the adults. Instead we pool our money and do Christmas for a family who can't afford it. It's much more fulfilling than giving/getting a bunch of often useless shit.

Gift giving still works if you just chill the fuck out and keep casual, it’s the weird expectation that’s placed on people that ruins it.

We do small gifts between immediate family. So while we don’t have huge Christmases like we used to as kids, we do still do stockings filled with favorite candies, gift cards, and smaller gifts like fuzzy socks, maybe jewelry or just smaller things we think the other person will like. We also do a shopping day where we set an allotted amount and then go buy stuff for each other. So mom and dad buy for each other, and my sister and I buy for each other. We do end up spending a small amount of money on gifts, but it’s become a really fun way to hang out with either mom or dad depending on the year, and then we have stuff to open on Christmas Day that we genuinely have no idea what it is. For me, that special feeling of Christmas as a kid was based on the absolute coolness of the presents my parents would get us and being able to play all day. But now that I’m older, I really just appreciate getting to spend time with everybody. To me, that’s what makes it special. We have lots of little traditions that we do all based around that idea. Plus I love giving gifts so it is genuinely fun for me to try and surprise my sister with stuff she’ll like.

The "War on Christmas" was started by the advertisers. Gift-giving was rarely a big deal. In A Christmas Carol, Scrooge sends a turkey to the Cratchits. That's it. In the "White Christmas" song, it's "Please have snow, and mistletoe, and presents on the tree" because the presents were relatively small items.

The psychotic greed-fest that lasts for months that Christmas has turned into isn't any fun for anyone except for the people who profit off everyone else's misery, as they spend like crazy to live up to impossible expectations.

Literally this. I grew up in a house where Christmas was the thing. We would start in November finish by Thanksgiving. Enjoy it for December and pack it by my birthday in January.

To say my parents had an obsession with Christmas is an understatement. And as a kid I enjoyed the fruits of my parents labor. It was truly magical. But then I became a teen. And part of the magic was now my job. Hanging lights. Spending hours after school setting up the tree and going through and putting wreaths up in the windows. Or lining the stairway with garland and red bells.

And I quickly learned I didn't love Christmas as much as my parents. It's to much work. So I abandoned it. It kind of broke my mother's heart but it just wasn't something I wanted to devote the time to.

Now that I'm an adult I have exactly what I'm willing to put into it. I have 5 strands of prelit garland inside the house. 4 in the living room and one in the kitchen. A Christmas tree. A ceramic tree with colored lights probably 18 inches tall. And three strands of lights on the gutters outside.

Takes a day to put up and less to take down.

Gift giving is gone except for kids. My nephew's will get a few things. But me and my siblings aren't trading anything. And I might buy my dad a small thing this year but it's less of a Xmas gift and more of a thing I'd buy him just cuz.

The only other person I buy gifts for is my fiance.