Just wondering about this year's family controversy which is also an etiquette problem.
Each year my wife and I sponsor families via a local organization that screens the families - we get to know names and ages, but nothing else, which is fine by us. Basically you buy gifts for the family members (including parents) based on a list they provide and then also give them money to buy Christmas dinner ($50 in this case), but you can provide more if you like. This year we decided to go to both sides our family and invite them to not exchange gifts, and rather to sponsor a family via our program or anything else they'd like to do (or not do), but not to buy gifts for us. The concept was not to buy each other stuff since we all are lucky enough to have plenty, have those with kids just buy for their own kids, and hopefully get everyone involved in some type of charity effort. Of course we knew it'd be a bit controversial to "opt out", but there are few hard feelings and I guess I'm wonder what you all think. My instinct is to say that if people can't see the good in our choice is, then feck 'em. We may end up just buying gifts for our family again to spare feelings, but I guess if we do it the real gift will be to their feelings. I know people have specific visions of Christmas, and that gifts and gift opening are a big part of that for some, but the joy of that has gone away for my wife and I whereas we actually have a blast buying gifts for the families we sponsor. On the one hand I want to step on the moral soapbox, but on the other I realize that I'm being selfish too because I enjoy buying for non-family over family. I dunno ... what d'ya think? ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| ColdFusion 8 - Build next generation apps today, with easy PDF and Ajax features - download now http://download.macromedia.com/pub/labs/coldfusion/cf8_beta_whatsnew_052907.pdf Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:248094 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
