I really hate celebrating Christmas. By now I should already have bought most of the presents for my friends and family, only I haven't yet bought a single one. I simply have no idea of what to buy anyone. I hate the pressure of having to buy presents for others, it's not really because I'm selfish and don't want to give my friends and family something they like, but I just never know what to get them.
Giving gifts to childres is rather easy since they don't have much money to buy themselves things that they want, but most adults do have money to buy themselves what they really want, unless it's something really expensive but then of course it's nothing I can buy them anyway. If you know that someone doesn't own a particular item it's usually because they don't actually want one, unless it's expensive as I already mentioned. And being a student with little money doesn't exactly make buying presents any easier. Anything that is not very cheap is too expensive for me to buy, unless I want to go without food for a month, which I obviously don't.
Since the present is supposed to be a surprise one can obviously not just ask people what they want even though that would make everything a whole lot easier.
I'm not very good at judging whether a product is in a person's taste or style so I just have to guess, and then when that is done comes the anxiety about wheter they will like my present or if they will hate it. It's worst of all when I have to watch them open it in front of me, I would much prefer it if people would open the present when I'm not around and never mention the present to me again so that I would never have to know if they hated my gift or not.
I'm not very fond of receiving Christmas or birthday presents either, it is not many people that are good at getting me things that I actually like and I hate having to open presents in front of them and pretend that I really like the present. It makes me feel so false having to act like that, but I really don't want to hurt anyone's feelings.
I just really do not see the point in giving gifts to each other when it would be so much easier if people could just buy what they want themselves instead of having to give away gifts they don't know if the recipients will like and receive gifts they often don't want. And that would actually be more efficient since according to the economist Joel Waldfogel gifts one is given by others gives one 20% less satisfaction than things one buys for oneself. But I don't really believe the tradition of giving presents will stop for that or any other reason.
I would like to just tell people that I don't celebrate Christmas, and therefore not have to receive any gifts and not have to give any away. But people don't really listen to that, some people would always end up buying me a present anyway, and then it would be very awkward if I didn't have a present to give back. So it seems to be no way out of this present-giving tradition no matter how much I dislike it.
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