A merry Christmas, finally another mad holiday rush is over. All in all Christmas was relatively peaceful, oh sure there was the occasional family fight, but everyone still has all their limbs and virtually no property damage. The most stressful part of the whole 'X-mas' experience was deciding on gifts and last minute shopping (I'm a consumer whore). As much as one would want to take a moral stand and say "No gifts this year... I'm putting the Christ back into Christmas!" or some such noble sentiment, if you are the only one who doesn't give anything... well you kind of look like the biggest jerk in the world. Like it or not, giving Christmas gifts is an important part of the holidays and the best one can hope to do is to put some thought into gifts instead of last minute bargain shopping (though some of those boxing day deals are awesome). Personally I think giving gifts is great, its only when you get to wrapped up in the hype and senseless consumerism that meaning gets lost.