Twas the day of Christmas, and all through the house, not a creature was stirring, except Chip clicking his mouse. Ok, so that’s about as creative as I can be right now. It’s 1:34 am and I just got through wrapping my mom’s present. She’s easy to shop for, thankfully, just about anything gets her excited, “free rain” “a new recycling center” just about anything, so she’ll like what I got her this year, which is a jar of recycled rain! Not really, but it will be nice.

I did some other Christmas shopping recently, but since the other half of my family is in Texas, we had Christmas a little early.

According to the New Yorker, around 150 billion dollars are spent on Christmas gifts annually, if you don’t own a department store yet, now would be a good time to buy one for next years gift rush.

Thankfully, Christmas is on a Monday, which meant that traffic at the local mall wasn’t that bad. To me, there’s a science that goes into buying Christmas gifts. My secret is to listen to what people say they “need” during the summer and go ahead and buy the gift then, this so far, has worked for me. To others, it’s the more impersonal “gift cards” which kind of say, I know you like “X” but I don’t know your taste well enough, so here’s 10 bucks. And what in the heck is up with McDonald’s gift cards? One McNasty sandwich please! Yet some people buy gifts based solely on the dollar amount of the gift. 500 dollar pair of sunglasses, 2,000 dollar computers and a new shiny car! I mean, I drive a Lexus, but come on, who buys a car for Christmas?

It’s interesting if you have the time to look up the story of Christmas, both in the traditional and nontraditional sense. The wisemen brought gifts for the baby Jesus, and now we exchange gifts with loved ones, but where did it become a rat race to out do the previous year?

Try this if you get a chance. Instead of buying lots of gifts, just buy a couple, and tell someone that you “love them” or just a simple “Thank you” and enjoy your time with them, you just might like it. And remember, our Saviour Jesus Christ was an unexpected gift for all of the world, and it didn’t cost us anything.