Alden, wonderful to hear about your life at an early age. Of course sad as well..... The shock you must of felt. I appreciate how you've worked with it all over the years. And thank you for helping others have permission to change their relationship to gift giving. The whole present mentality has irked me for decades and we learned once our girls were old enough to give them modest checks and just us "girls" would go shopping together the day after xmas and had a blast! We loved it. Spent the day together finding treasures and bargains with everything on sale. We all have fond memories of these adventures to this day.
Haleya! That's so cool. I wish I had learned to shop that way. After the whole ordeal, I'd just avoid shopping well into January! It's kind of amazing that we have so many options for how to relate to holidays, and while we can find ourselves in deep grooves of habit, small adjustments can bring such pleasure! Thanks for sharing your fun!
This is such a powerful example of how our view of the world, and our place in it, is so deeply ingrained in our early years. I enjoyed learning how you worked past your dread of giving gifts, and I love your brilliant idea of Asynchronous Gift Giving. Problem solved!
Thank you, Larry. It appears that the AGG model is spontaneously spreading! Our young people are coming up with ideas of their own, and friends have decided to go on a family vacation during December, bypassing the rituals of Christmas and Hanukah altogether. I like the idea of doing the light, beauty and food rituals in ways that are easy and comfortable. Maybe we're making a collective shift toward simple pleasures and ease. Like you say: problem solved!
One thing that doesn't thrill me about Christmas and Hanukah is the *pressure* about giving gifts. Doing so should be more spontaneous and less obligatory. And I didn't know that the AGG model is spreading. Right on!
Ah, so poignant and evocative and heartachey! All the "both are true" contradictions of holiday associations. This is perfectly timed as I enter the season of hope that I might give gifts well and dread that I might not. This may well help me shortcut a Christmas eve trip to the drug store. : )
It's refreshing to recognize dread, or obligation, as a habit and get curious about how to make it into a simple pleasure. The ripple effect in the family is a delightful surprise, I'm noticing!
Alden... I love this story... all the ways we take on these deep hurts as kids and have no way to make sense of it. Sorry that St Nick was so mean to you! I like both getting and receiving gifts, but at this stage of my life am not attached to either. My partner though, must have had some similar trauma to yours because he's so anxious about not giving the 'right gift', the 'good enough gift.' So he goes out and does something like your dad's trip to the drug store instead. Or buys something in a color that I wouldn't wear in a million years... and then I feel bad that I never wear it. I just wish I could help him relax over the whole thing. How to make it a simple pleasure, indeed.
Thank you, Linda. It's so sad to feel so hung up with such a loving intention. What a bind when we're told: "It's the thought that counts!" But when the mismatch between the effort and the results is so disappointing, the thought loses the buoyant, loving impulse! I've been working this puzzle with my partner for years; he too has no idea what to give. He says he can't even visualize what I'm wearing if he's not actually looking at me. So we go shopping together; or we send each other links to what we'd really like with all the specifics noted, and then we get to choose which item to give so there is some surprise factor. Only now we're just giving asynchronously, not performatively on specific days. Our birthdays are coming up, a couple of weeks apart, so we're figuring out what we'll do together. I wish you two some surprising fun with creating a new pattern!
Alden... yes it's fascinating how some things like this stay with us for decades. I like the suggested links idea- I do that sometimes too. More and more I like the gift of an experience rather than 'something'. Have fun coming up with your birthday treats.
I also remembered I wanted to share the gift giving practice here in Indonesia. They do give gifts, but you never open it in front of the giver. And a person never seems to tell you what they liked about it after the fact. So for those of us not accustomed to this, it's very strange. The loop is not closed. Half the pleasure is seeing someone's reaction to what we got them- for me anyway. I think the idea is you don't want to embarrass the person who gave you something you don't like, or somehow not "valuable" enough... saving face is a big deal here. So interesting.
I am so weary of our acquisitive culture. I want real things. Hand-made; cooked. I want my kids to value the same. Yet every year we fight the urge towards what's drug-store shiny.
Oh Isabel. I'll bet they're learning significant discernment through osmosis! Do you remember your parent's spontaneous cringe response to some of your choices? Quite the wet blanket. I did love to watch my mother's interest in good quality; she showed me the differences in how things were made. I learned to feel the difference between acrylic and wool, or plastics and ceramics, for example. She had fun showing me what she liked, savoring the qualities, and while she sometimes tolerated looking at what interested me, her opinion was so clear, especially when she said nothing. Your interest and curiosity have so much power.
I had no idea that you lived in Germany when you were little, and I loved reading this, Alden. Would love to connect 1:1 over Zoom sometime soon when / if you have time.
Alden, wonderful to hear about your life at an early age. Of course sad as well..... The shock you must of felt. I appreciate how you've worked with it all over the years. And thank you for helping others have permission to change their relationship to gift giving. The whole present mentality has irked me for decades and we learned once our girls were old enough to give them modest checks and just us "girls" would go shopping together the day after xmas and had a blast! We loved it. Spent the day together finding treasures and bargains with everything on sale. We all have fond memories of these adventures to this day.
Haleya! That's so cool. I wish I had learned to shop that way. After the whole ordeal, I'd just avoid shopping well into January! It's kind of amazing that we have so many options for how to relate to holidays, and while we can find ourselves in deep grooves of habit, small adjustments can bring such pleasure! Thanks for sharing your fun!
This is such a powerful example of how our view of the world, and our place in it, is so deeply ingrained in our early years. I enjoyed learning how you worked past your dread of giving gifts, and I love your brilliant idea of Asynchronous Gift Giving. Problem solved!
Thank you, Larry. It appears that the AGG model is spontaneously spreading! Our young people are coming up with ideas of their own, and friends have decided to go on a family vacation during December, bypassing the rituals of Christmas and Hanukah altogether. I like the idea of doing the light, beauty and food rituals in ways that are easy and comfortable. Maybe we're making a collective shift toward simple pleasures and ease. Like you say: problem solved!
One thing that doesn't thrill me about Christmas and Hanukah is the *pressure* about giving gifts. Doing so should be more spontaneous and less obligatory. And I didn't know that the AGG model is spreading. Right on!
Ah, so poignant and evocative and heartachey! All the "both are true" contradictions of holiday associations. This is perfectly timed as I enter the season of hope that I might give gifts well and dread that I might not. This may well help me shortcut a Christmas eve trip to the drug store. : )
It's refreshing to recognize dread, or obligation, as a habit and get curious about how to make it into a simple pleasure. The ripple effect in the family is a delightful surprise, I'm noticing!
Alden... I love this story... all the ways we take on these deep hurts as kids and have no way to make sense of it. Sorry that St Nick was so mean to you! I like both getting and receiving gifts, but at this stage of my life am not attached to either. My partner though, must have had some similar trauma to yours because he's so anxious about not giving the 'right gift', the 'good enough gift.' So he goes out and does something like your dad's trip to the drug store instead. Or buys something in a color that I wouldn't wear in a million years... and then I feel bad that I never wear it. I just wish I could help him relax over the whole thing. How to make it a simple pleasure, indeed.
Thank you, Linda. It's so sad to feel so hung up with such a loving intention. What a bind when we're told: "It's the thought that counts!" But when the mismatch between the effort and the results is so disappointing, the thought loses the buoyant, loving impulse! I've been working this puzzle with my partner for years; he too has no idea what to give. He says he can't even visualize what I'm wearing if he's not actually looking at me. So we go shopping together; or we send each other links to what we'd really like with all the specifics noted, and then we get to choose which item to give so there is some surprise factor. Only now we're just giving asynchronously, not performatively on specific days. Our birthdays are coming up, a couple of weeks apart, so we're figuring out what we'll do together. I wish you two some surprising fun with creating a new pattern!
Alden... yes it's fascinating how some things like this stay with us for decades. I like the suggested links idea- I do that sometimes too. More and more I like the gift of an experience rather than 'something'. Have fun coming up with your birthday treats.
I also remembered I wanted to share the gift giving practice here in Indonesia. They do give gifts, but you never open it in front of the giver. And a person never seems to tell you what they liked about it after the fact. So for those of us not accustomed to this, it's very strange. The loop is not closed. Half the pleasure is seeing someone's reaction to what we got them- for me anyway. I think the idea is you don't want to embarrass the person who gave you something you don't like, or somehow not "valuable" enough... saving face is a big deal here. So interesting.
I am so weary of our acquisitive culture. I want real things. Hand-made; cooked. I want my kids to value the same. Yet every year we fight the urge towards what's drug-store shiny.
Oh Isabel. I'll bet they're learning significant discernment through osmosis! Do you remember your parent's spontaneous cringe response to some of your choices? Quite the wet blanket. I did love to watch my mother's interest in good quality; she showed me the differences in how things were made. I learned to feel the difference between acrylic and wool, or plastics and ceramics, for example. She had fun showing me what she liked, savoring the qualities, and while she sometimes tolerated looking at what interested me, her opinion was so clear, especially when she said nothing. Your interest and curiosity have so much power.
I had no idea that you lived in Germany when you were little, and I loved reading this, Alden. Would love to connect 1:1 over Zoom sometime soon when / if you have time.