Well, although my family wasn't poor, my parents never put any real emphasis on expensive presents eitehr for our birthdays or for Christmas, and instead we just travelled with them a lot. The most expensive present I ever got was an NES, and that was for both me and my sister. The downside was that at the time, we kept comparing outselves to other kids who would sometimes receive 150$ from their grandparents alone while we'd get about that amount total for all our present *if* we were lucky; the upside is that we didn't grow up spoiled rotten and appreciate the value of hard work.
The rest of the time we were told to save our weekly 5$ allowance until we could buy what we really wanted. Needless to say that I got tired of the Gameboy before I could ever earn enough to buy one, and I never bought a lot of things I thought I wanted but never regretted not getting.
Anyway, while Christmas no longer has all the magic it had as kids when we used to count the days until Christmas Eve with the mass, the extended family supper, the presents from our parents and family and the little gifts in our decorated socks in the morning which we were *sure* were really from Santa and the holiday cartoons every day for two weeks, it's still a special time to me.
Now that Christmas is devoid of material value, I've attributed a more spiritual one to it. While it's true that all the values preached at Christmas are important such as love, compassion, family and such, they really are important all year long. But somehow, we just keep forgetting among the troubles of everyday life. It's important for me to use the holiday to reflect back on those important values and try again to make them last as long in my mind as I can.
I also like to take the time to get to know my extended family more. As a kid, I just couldn't care less about the adults, and as I grew up, I got caught in the little disputes and rivalry where most of the family for example think that so-and-so hates them and keeps avoiding them because she's a snob, and things like that. But in recent years, I've tried as much as possible to talk to everyone during the Christmas supper to try and really know what's going on in their lives and how they feel. I can't know for sure that everyone's being honest, but my experience tells me that people just aren't honest with each other or such rivalries and misunderstanding wouldn't happen.
Oh yeah, as for my immediate family plus a few chosen friends and extended family members, we throw our own little party where we have fun, play games and try to dance as bad as possible to cheesy music. Basically, do the kind of things that we know everyone involved will enjoy and participate in.
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"With the first link, the chain is forged. The first speech censored, the first thought forbidden, the first freedom denied, chains us all irrevocably." [...] The first time any man's freedom is trodden on, we're all damaged. - Captain Jean-Luc Picard
B*tch, meet reality. Reality, meet b*tch. - Me
