Cuz that’s how I feel. I’ve done most of the Christmas shopping, but that’s about as far as the Christmas “spirit” has taken me. (And why is it called “spirit”? I digress.) We are now at essentially 10 days until Christmas and what have we done for decorating? We have hung the outside lights. Yup, that’s it. No tree up, no stockings up, no presents wrapped, nothing. If I thought Sophia would let us get away with not putting the tree up, I’d definitely do it.

I want to be in the holiday spirit. I want to talk about Santa, Jesus (a little), sing carols, make cookies, hang the stockings, re-decorate the tree (after the kids pull them all off of it), etc. But, I’m just not. And I don’t know why. Perhaps it’s because I’m just plain tired these days. Perhaps because we don’t have snow (which is always a signal to be that Christmas is coming). Or maybe it’s because my parents have decided to change Christmas up a bit this year. I don’t know what it is, but I’d like it to go away. I’d like the “spirit.”

If you purchase store gift cards for friends and family, Snopes offers some important fraud information that’s worth reading and repeating.

Over at Ask MetaFilter, they’ve been discussing passive-aggressive gift ideas. Warning: some adult language and lots of humbuggery. You can thank Andrea.

As I probably mentioned before, my mom’s side of the family has a reunion every five years at Christmas. This is the year that we are doing it. For gifts, we all draw names. We have four adult gifts to buy. Somebody’s lucking out and getting all the little guys, but anyway. . .

We are buying for my cousin, D, who is some high-falutin’ executive at an internets company in San Diego, CA, although you wouldn’t know that if you met him because he’s very unpretentious. He looks just like Jerry Seinfeld, by the way. Whenever I see him (every five years), I always have to marvel at how much he looks like him. I’m sure he’s sick of hearing about how much he looks like Jerry Seinfeld. He has varied interests and used to be semi-pro (I think) in beach volleyball out there. But, what do you get someone who makes lots more money than you do and whom you don’t even know very well even if he is related to you?

OK, next drawee: D’s wife L. I have met her twice. Once ten years ago and once five years ago. She’s very nice. I think she has an art background or her dad’s an artist, or a jazz musician. She has some kind of job in the high tech industry although I think it’s more on the human resources side of things. She’s very petite (D is very tall). She’s from California. That’s what I know about her. Now, what would you get someone who you knew that much about? I mean, I know more about some of my online friends than I do about her.

As it turns out though, I think shopping for women you don’t really know is easier than guys, because with women, you can always go for candles or bath salts or yummy lotions or calendars or a nice scarf or whatnot. Actually, I e-mailed both L and D earlier for gift suggestions and found out that they are renovating their house big time and that L might appreciate something having to do with home decor, etc. That made narrowing down a gift a little easier as someone had just told me about this new magazine called Dom*ino which is published by the same people who publish Lu*cky. It’s the same thing as Lu*cky, but about home decorating. It’s not very expensive so it fits our budget. That’s what L is getting.

Our other two names — one is my cousin’s husband whom I’ve never met, but I was able to figure something out for him (see earlier post). The other is another cousin’s son who is about 22 or something like that. I have no. frickn. clue what to get a 22 year old guy. There’s all the generic stuff like Old Navy gift card. . . hey, there’s an idea . . . maybe I’ll just to do that.

Gift cards are easy, right? But they kind of just scream, I don’t know you or what you could possibly want, so here’s this gift card for you to go find what you want. There’s no excitement when they open up that gift card envelope, there’s no oohing and aaahing. There’s no — that’s just what I needed or wanted. I know, I could get him a sweater or something, but again, kinda generic, and I really have no idea what his tastes are.

By the way, I think my cousin D is getting a gift card too.

Do you have to buy for friends or family you don’t know very well? What do you get them?

I hate to bring this here but it IS a Christmas blog, and this IS a Christmas issue.

Two words: Santa Claus.

I’m just not sure where I stand with him – not in terms of whether I’ve been naughty or nice (and I’m not asking for suggestions here, thanks), but in terms of what I will tell Kal about the jolly old man with a white beard.

I’m not really worried about it this year – Kal is too young to do the whole Santa thing. Although as I balanced him on my knee next to the Yankee Candle Santa a couple weeks ago, I did worry that my 18 month old might be mysteriously relating Christmas to the smell of vodka when he’s 18 years old.

I’m sure you’re not surprised by that cynicism, especially if you are familiar with my Scrooge-like distaste for all things related to Elmo, Disney, and Elisabeth Hasselbeck (and hey, might as well throw Walmart into that mix ).

When I sum it up that way, it almost sounds un-American to be cynical about Santa Claus, doesn’t it? And maybe there’s some truth to that. I’m pretty sure Danny’s parents didn’t do the Santa thing while growing up in Portugal, and Danny himself will tell you that Santa was never a huge focus in his Christmases when he was a kid.

And clearly my childhood couldn’t have been that typical if it churned out a social deviant like me; I can also attest that Santa wasn’t a huge thing in our house either. I do remember making a list for Santa, leaving out cookies, and listening for footsteps on the roof, but I also remember thanking my parents for the presents that were signed with Santa’s name.

Maybe Santa wasn’t a huge thing for me when I was little because we also had an Advent wreath on our kitchen table to light each morning at breakfast, and Advent calendar hanging on the wall to count down the days to Jesus’ birth, rehearsals for the church Christmas pageant, and then a huge celebration on Epiphany Sunday (about a week after Christmas) when the Wise Men arrived in Bethlehem (actually, El Dia de Los Reyes – The Day of the Kings – is much bigger than Christmas in Latin America). Santa was just something extra, not the focus.

It’s not that I had a bad experience with the whole Santa thing. I just really love Christmas for what it is – a very special time of faith.

And no, I don’t have a bumper sticker on my car that says “Jesus is the reason for the season” or any other Christmas advocacy going on. I just feel a little ill when my eyes are assaulted with images of the fat man in the red suit while there are still Halloween decorations everywhere. I guess I’m rejecting the commercialistic part of it and trying to focus more on the Nativity part of it – which is nothing revolutionary or new of course, but now that I’ve got my own kid, I need to be sure of where I stand.

Like I alluded to before – I see Santa as being part of American culture. But there are lots of things in American culture that I don’t subscribe to, and America’s depiction of Santa Claus feels like it’s going to be right up there with Disney and Walmart.

And Danny loves the idea of telling Kal the truth and having him become “That Kid” who feels the need to blurt out, “Santa isn’t real, you know.” So yes, I do have a partner in cynicism-crime.

But idealistically, I’d like to focus more on Saint Nicholas, Papa Noel, the Magi, and the idea of Christmas tradition and folklore more than the typical mall-Santa mentality.

I often miss the staff of the university library where I catalogued (was it really over five years ago?). They became kind of like a family, with, sometimes, the attendant quirkiness and infighting. So eventually, as in every family, the time comes for the offspring to move out.

But there were good times. One of the nicest traditions was the holiday white elephant-style exchange party.

At least in theory.

Christmas just wouldn’t be Christmas without one humbugger, and, in an act of sheer dumb coincidence, I just happened to bear the brunt secretly three years running. The entire staff knew just what a mule this person is in general, and probably each has their own teeth-gritting story to tell. This is mine.

It’s difficult to find just the right balance in a white elephant gift. You’ve got to juggle the low price imposition, the expected kitsch/humor factor, and at least a little practicability. Considering that, I think did a pretty decent job.

Year one. An impossibly huge ceramic “snack” set, consisting of a soup mug and bread plate festooned with borderline tacky candy canes and mistletoe abounding. The recipient who chose it from the pile made it obvious that it didn’t meet her high white elephant standards. The next person in line was charmed, however, and, as was her higher-number privilege, she “stole” the gift in lieu of opening a wrapped one.

Year two. Oh! I stumbled upon the most adorably-designed dustpan and brush at Target. The brush was a brown squirrel, the business end his bushy tail. And the pan was a green leaf, the handle/”stem” to which the squirrel could quite handily cling. If I hadn’t been so disgustingly poor at the time, I would’ve had one of my own, too (no - I paid nowhere near $30 for mine! Eesh!). In retrospect, I should’ve just given it to myself… because you’ll just never guess who chose my gift yet again. And she was even less thrilled than the year before, proclaiming the gift’s utter ridiculousness loudly and often. I admit, I don’t take criticism of my gifts well, so this repeated bashing was becoming quite a killjoy.

Year three. I’m nothing if not a closet optimist, so I decided to try again. I found a flowerpot breadmaking kit, complete with everything you’d need to bake a small cute loaf. And… well, you can probably see where this is going.

“What is this! Every year, I pick something stupid! I’m not doing this next year.”

Amen, sister. A-men.

I totally wrote this whole thing and Kal deleted it. How charming.

The Christmas Resistance Movement!