The 4th of July and Thanksgiving are my favorite holidays:
- July 4th: Sit around with friends and watch exploding projectiles. Oooh. Aaah.
- Thanksgiving: Sit around with friends while eating stuffing and cranberry sauce. Mmmm. Mmmm.
As a kid, Christmas was another favorite. The best part was spending time with relatives. I did enjoy the gifts, but they aren’t my favorite memories. Except the Alpha Probe. I loved the Alpha Probe:
The Alpha Probe was awesome. It made noises and had another mini ship inside the payload bay.
The Alpha Probe creators were also ahead of their time. The toy came out in 1979, but had a woman astronaut. The first American female didn’t go to space until 1983. Way to go Fisher Price!
I think I have my Alpha Probe in a box somewhere. Hold on a minute while I look for it…
***went to the basement to look through some boxes***
No Alpha Probe. I have no idea where it went. Perhaps it was sent to the landfill in a toy purge. It breaks my heart to think that the Alpha Probe’s last adventure was in a garbage truck on the way to the dump. Sigh…
But I digress.
The Alpha Probe was a great gift because it gave me hours of enjoyment and as a 6 year-old, I didn’t have the means to purchase it myself. Woot!
As an adult, life is different:
- I’m not a minimalist, but…: While an Alpha Probe would make me happy (yes, even as an adult), little else would. More stuff means that I need more time to maintain the stuff. I value my time more than stuff.
- I already have it: I’m thankful to have the financial means to get what I need and what I want. If I need something, I buy it. I feel especially bad when a relative who struggles financially buys me a gift.
My philosophy on gifts is this:
If I happen upon something that I know a friend or family member will enjoy or needs, I buy it for them regardless of the day.
Forced gift-giving sucks. The practice feels hollow and uninspired.
Forced gift card giving is even worse. A segment of my circle of humans has a gift card exchange. Here is how it works:
Each person tells the others what gift card to buy them. At a planned time, we exchange them.
WTF. I’m about to puke on my keyboard just thinking about the upcoming anti-fun
I’ve tried to persuade family to give up the practice of giving gifts. Instead of buying an object, I’ve suggested that we all use our money to spend time together. In some cases, it’s worked. In others, not at all.
To end the battle, perhaps I could come up with some gifts that are so horrible that the practice will be discouraged forever?!?? And why let my research go to waste? I present to you:
The Ultimate Crappy Gift Guide
Toilet mug: When I was a child, the toilet did double-duty as a Hot Wheels car wash. I don’t think I ever drank out of it though. But now you can (NOT an affiliate link)!
Batcart: Do you have a friend who wants to look like a massive tool on the golf course? For a cool $28,000, I give you this (NOT an affiliate link):
“Massager”: Want to waste a shit-ton of money and make gift opening super uncomfortable all at the same time? For only $1,150, I give you a golden vibrator (DEFINITELY NOT an affiliate link!):
And don’t worry, pets can get in on the action too. Here’s a $180 dog dish (it even says “dog.” just in case you forget what kind of animal Scraps is):
I can’t take any more of this nonsense, so I’m going back to the basement to see if I can find my Alpha Probe.
Epilogue
But I like to give!
Instead of blowing hard-earned money on silliness, why not help out a local charity or institution that you enjoy? Meaningful giving is the best kind.
Join the 10s who have signed up already!
Subscribing will improve your life in incredible ways*.
*Only if your life is pretty bad to begin with.
I don’t think I’ve stumbled across a FIRE blog yet that mentioned the first female astronaut toy and a gold-plated vibrator in the same post. Leave it to you, Carl! LOL.
I’m with you on this. Not looking forward to handing out the expected gift cards to nephews this Christmas. I should just treat them to their uncle’s favorite scotch and cigar combos, but their mother would kill me.
buy some art. it doesn’t have to cost a grand for a painting. before i knew mrs. smidlap i got a couple of paintings i liked for 40-50 bucks from a street vendor/painter. her name was cara silverberg. if anyone knows where she ended up please tell her i still appreciate those pieces.
gift cards give me the willies or the heebie geebies…or maybe both.
i heard an advertisement the other day for a gaming chair. they ought to call it an obesity chair which is likely to magically transform to a diabetes chair. you get two in one!
i enjoy giving an unexpected gift from time to time. one year i bought a couple of “chico’s bail bonds” t-shirts and gave them as a surprise to a couple of buddies. that’s from the bad news bears. forced gift giving should be illegal unless you’re forced to pony up for that sweet toilet mug.
freddy smidlap recently posted…FIRE is a Different Path When you Live Rural Part I – Food and Housing
Preach! This is one reason we started doing an actual Christmas in July (or other more convenient summer month) with the strategic intent that when our kids are adults with their own families and traditions, our “Christmas” will be getting everybody together at least once a year and the gift may be a plane ticket or hotel stay rather than a pretty box of lotions with a bow on top. In the meantime, it’s one less get together our kids have to try and squeeze into their already full schedules hitting all the houses they are expected to make an appearance (and collect pretty boxes with bows) at.
Wow, I forgot all about the Alpha Probe. I loved that toy too! It was so cool the way the doors opened and those buttons. I don’t remember the astronauts, though. They must have been lost on one of their early missions.
The gift card exchange sounds like adults giving each other an excuse to buy stuff. Lame!
Really glad the gold vibrator is “new”
I know, right?
You’re too much man, haha…
Hey, now, who wouldn’t want a golf cart tricked out like a mini squished batmobile? No one, that’s who. As for the other gifts…are they really all that bad compared with the Alpha Probe? Sure they dont light up and make noise,but at least you wont have to say “probe”. Except for the golden “massager”.
Generally, I pick up gifts for people as I see them, too- but save it for Christmas. I also make a bunch of gifts. I have no idea if they really are appreciated or not, but it’s (at this point) the thought that counts. Or i just go with making cookies.
Wow, it all comes flooding back. I had an Alpha Probe! Or a similar item. Did the engines pop off and connect to the little shuttle?
YES, that’s exactly it! I loved all of the little things like that it could do!
I have the immediate family aligned now to just doing stockings (which I made) filled with things we all use or eat/drink regularly: good dark chocolate, wine or beer, random toiletries that we USE, etc., not junk or weirdness that will get tossed. Sometimes someone picks up a random other thing, but it’s because we genuinely think the person will need/use it – not to fulfill some obligation of exchange.
For the (older) extended relatives, they’ve also finally given in and abandoned the Great Giftcard Exchange (it took years though)… now we get together, eat, talk, play games, and generally catch up with each other’s lives. Towards the end of the day, we have fun doing a ‘Yankee Swap’ / ‘White Elephant’ that is something $25 or less (usually consumable) and we do the random picking/stealing game; it’s usually 45min’s of snarky jokes and fun.
Remember – even if folks have gifting traditions that make you grind your teeth… take a step back and remember it’s only (I hope) once a year and not really worth getting your knickers in a twist for. Take a deep breath, roll your eyes, and think of a reason you do appreciate them – don’t waste your emotional energy focusing on this annoyance.
Best wishes to you all!