Good Riddance, Santa Claus!

Thank GOD Christmas has come and gone. This year I had the brilliant idea to make presents for everyone on my list. I ended up making about 70% of the gifts. While the idea sounded really good, it's not an ideal game plan for a serial procrastinator. Anyway, I pulled it off. I think the reviews were mixed. Some people thought their gifts were cool while others were like, "That's cute, now where's my real present?" I anticipated this reaction, which is why I attached this to each homemade gift:

How the Recession Saved Christmas
By M. Reynoso

Once upon a time, this one girl really loved Christmas because it was so much fun. You got to give great presents to your favorite people. She didn't have money to buy expensive things - she was just a little kid. So she made things - awesome things like pictures people kept on their refrigerators for years and plastic neon necklaces people wore to important holiday parties.

Then that girl grew up.

She started getting paychecks and eventually fell into the trap of buying the right gift for everyone on her list - people who already had everything anyway. Gifts ended up in garages (or garage sales). One day, while spending hours brainstorming the right gift for one of her favorite people, she thought, "Christmas really sucks."

And then something magical happened: the economy took a dump.

This was great news for the girl! It would be her chance to take back Christmas - give homemade gifts, blame it on the economy, make Christmas fun again.

So please enjoy this homemade gift. There's a good chance you may never get a store-bought one ever again because Christmas was actually fun this year.

I don't know about that last line. It was kind of a pain in the ass. But the whole notion of getting somebody something fancy just because they got me something fancy is an even bigger pain in the ass because I simply can't afford it. We're in a recession, damnit.

I did give John a homemade present which was, by his standards, the best gift ever. After nearly seven years of begging and pleading, I finally finished and delivered to him our wedding video. He almost cried. No lie.