What’s Christmas worth?

Cherokeekid88 said:
That's exactly it. My thing is, take $10 from each person and get them each a $100 gift card. done deal. One year, they got them both an ipad. come on, you think someone who makes a couple hundred grand a year doesn't already have one or mulitple?
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Well, they may not. But it's not because the employee's didn't give them that couple hundred bucks at Christmas. :laughing:
 
UTfball68 said:
See…another reason I hate the whole idea of gift giving. My SG&A crew has really spent some money and time on gifts, not only for me, but my wife and my kids in years past. Then the expectation is to reciprocate and more. Well if I do those 10-15 heads, then I have to do the 10-15 heads in operations and the 5-10 heads in quality and the 5 heads in warehousing. Where does it end. Thanks, but do it because you want to, not because you think you’re getting something in return. And that’s the problem I have with the entire gift giving dichotomy. So because someone/a group of people pooled their funds and decided to spend $250 on me, now I have to go spend $1500 because of some social obligation…pound sand, especially when I don’t spend that cumulatively on my own family or direct blood relatives.
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I agree with you completely. I do not typically enjoy getting gifts, for multiple reasons: 1. social norm that now I owe them a gift, 2. If I need/want something, I will get it for myself, 3. Most people are terrible at choosing gifts.

My opinion of the business/corporate structure, is that the company should do something during the holidays to show their employees appreciation. If that is a nice Christmas party, and dinner out, a bonus, etc. but if they are going to do it, it should be done right, and not half ass, as it shows. I dont believe there is any value in a boss or employee(s) buying each other gifts, unless they are really that close and want to do it outside of work.
 
Cherokeekid88 said:
then my wife tells me that her office is taking up $60 from everyone (20 employees) to get their 2 bosses each a gift...which is $600 each....THEN, they want to take up $10 each for the office manager from each person, and then a secret Santa gift with a cap of $25... I went off.
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There is absolutely NO WAY I would participate in something like that.
 
Cherokeekid88 said:
My wife and I were having this conversation just yesterday. We are focused on our daughter having a magical Christmas, not just with presents but with experiences... and some of those experiences costs money unfortunately, but then my wife tells me that her office is taking up $60 from everyone (20 employees) to get their 2 bosses each a gift...which is $600 each....THEN, they want to take up $10 each for the office manager from each person, and then a secret Santa gift with a cap of $25... I went off. Then her brother has 5 kids that we have to buy for and it just gets ridiculous. I have to say, this year I decided do a toys for tots run at my office and just about everyone gave something and the satisfaction of taking all those toys to our drop off location was so much more rewarding than this whole shit show of trying to figure out what to get everyone and spending ungodly amounts of money that doesn't need to be spent to try and make people happy.
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No to the HELL NO! At my last job we would do something for the bosses, but it was VERY SMALL. little to no money. One year we had a vendor cut the icon of the company logo out of steel. to hang over the front door. I asked our vendor to cut two small samples as well. about 5" diameter. Luckily the same vendor did it for free since we spent about $250K with them that year. Anyway, I grabbed a couple pieces of wood and asked another vendor to cut the letters in the logo out of plastic. and I made some signs from Metal, Plastic and wood for the guys to hang in their office. didn't cost a dime, but was the best thing the employees could have done for them. Some scrap pieces, some vendor relations and my time when the bosses weren't looking.
 
Man, I am glad I am not crazy for thinking this way. The bad part about too is, My wife feels like if she doesn't give, then she is going to be viewed a certain way. But the bosses honestly should tell all the employees not to do something like this. I just went on and on about last night at home and then I finally just let it go, but I've got to be around all these people tonight, so we will see how this goes. My wife is probably going to have to keep getting after me to keep my mouth shut.
 
I grew up with Christmas and my folks did everything they could to make sure my sister and I had everything we NEEDED. Over the years I have come to really not enjoy the whole commercialization of the season. The last 2 years my wife and I have given one gift only and it was a “need” item not a want. This year we will not be celebrating Christmas at all as we will be celebrating Yule and it’s historic aspect on the season.
 
paradisePWoffrd said:
the company should do [snip] Christmas party, and dinner out, a bonus,
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By the way...thanks...forgot to submit the final bonus file to my payroll company and paid the final deposits for the Christmas meal...both needed to be in by 5.
 
My sister has three kids and her most recent ex husband has two so that was 5 gifts to buy when she only had to buy one.Call it petty or whatever you want but after the second Christmas of doin that I said enuf.
 
We participated in the Angel Tree at our church (two kids shared with our Sunday school class, one boy one girl). The boy was around 12 years old I think and his 'want' item were gaming gift cards AND a PS5! I don't know if anyone in the SS class is going to buy it, really hope not, but that just goes to prove how rough we ad Americans have it. It's either people taking advantage of the Angel tree, or parents that do need stuff and just don't have sense enough to tell their kid to not ask for something ridiculous like a PS5. The girls 'want' item was a Polaroid camera which range from $120-200, still a lot, but more useful.

I mentioned we could find a PS2 and mark out the '2' and put a '5', that would teach the little shit. 😃
 
Including our kids there are 20 kids that we get together with around the holidays. For my side of the family (9) we draw names and buy for 1 kid. On my wife's side 14 kids we buy one for everyone right now.
 
mbalbritton said:
So….

It’s Christmas time against n and I know I’m not the only one with nieces and nephews and was included a large group of nieces and nephews growing up.

I have 18 neices and nephews that range from 8-22 and my kids are 15-22. The flat truth is that this shit adds up come Christmas time. Mine and the wife’s siblings have dismissed any gift exchange as is reasonable. But at 18 “kids” even as little as $20 (that doesn’t seem much) adds up in the big picture.

How do all of you handle Christmas?
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After years of that crap, came up with a new plan...

We find kids in real need (harder than it sounds) and do their Christmas (sometimes just clothes, sometimes just toys, sometimes both) and have gone as far as writing that info in a card for those that insisted on a gift for their little hoodlum (basically, "Knowing you understand the true meaning of Christmas, We gave a gift to a child that had NOTHING, from you".

This years has been the best warm/fuzzy... 1st & 6th grader lost their father last week 🥺
 
mbalbritton said:
So the wife company Christmas party is tonight and everyone said to bring a $25 gift card to exchange… my wife is so pissed at how dumb it is. I plan to be the asshole that points it out at tonight’s little soirée.
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Man, I thought this was going to be me Friday night. I was just waiting for someone to bring it up, but no one ever did. So I kept my cool and my wife also kept her job : )
 
Caver Dave said:
We find kids in real need (harder than it sounds)
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This has been the difficult part for me. I've been looking for years to find kids that really need things. I have several bicycles that my kids have grown out of (some were hardly ridden and still look brand new). I have two of the large tricycles with metal frames and pneumatic tires that look brand new. I would love to give them to a kid that won't have the opportunity to have a bike. I can't find anyone! I've even went to the schools my kids go to and asked the counselors and they're not any help either. I usually wind up donating them to Salvation Army. I would much rather them go to someone that would enjoy them.
 
NCJeeplover said:
This has been the difficult part for me. I've been looking for years to find kids that really need things. I have several bicycles that my kids have grown out of (some were hardly ridden and still look brand new). I have two of the large tricycles with metal frames and pneumatic tires that look brand new. I would love to give them to a kid that won't have the opportunity to have a bike. I can't find anyone! I've even went to the schools my kids go to and asked the counselors and they're not any help either. I usually wind up donating them to Salvation Army. I would much rather them go to someone that would enjoy them.
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If you go to church, that might be a good place to start. I know when my Brother in law and his family were struggling, someone from their church gave them $1000 one year at Christmas to help buy gifts, pay bills, etc. and they ended up getting a good amount of gift cards that year as well. I have always wanted to do this too. I know that one year at work, we contacted our local elementary school and they knew of a couple of families that were struggling and we all took up money/toys/gift cards for them.
 
Cherokeekid88 said:
If you go to church, that might be a good place to start. I know when my Brother in law and his family were struggling, someone from their church gave them $1000 one year at Christmas to help buy gifts, pay bills, etc. and they ended up getting a good amount of gift cards that year as well. I have always wanted to do this too. I know that one year at work, we contacted our local elementary school and they knew of a couple of families that were struggling and we all took up money/toys/gift cards for them.
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The Dad of a good buddy of mine from College became kind of a "college dad" to me. My parents lived states away and I'd go home with my buddy from UNCC to Greensboro often times to go fishing with him and his dad. Years later he was taken early by cancer and it was at his funeral that many found out that secretly every year (and randomly as needed) he would pay for less fortunate church members heating oil tanks to be filled up, or groceries to be dropped off, or Christmas presents. Just something the church pastor kept between the the two of them. I don't know for certain, but I think my buddy turned it into a family tradition.

That's Christmas.
 
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