I love the holiday season. I am not at all religious but I enjoy the Christmas season as a well, secular, feel good time of year. I know, I know. It isn't the religious meaning, but I still love it.
Last year we had recently moved and we didn't have outside Christmas decorations but up and I hated missing it. This year we had the house decorated.
And the gifts, my God, the gifts. PLEASE don't get me anything. I'm so tired of receiving junk that just sits around. I can't get rid of it for fear of offending someone, but I know I'll never use it.
The good thing about a gift is that you can do with it what you want. A good use of a gift you don't really care for is to re-gift it to someone who might enjoy it. Or donate it somewhere useful. Or -- sell it at your garage sale. You don't need to announce to the giver that you have done any of this. If someone is so rude as to ask where the cup is that they gave you, then you can either avoid the issue (oh, I don't know exactly where it is right now), or tell a white lie (I hate to say that I broke it) or be honest (I had so many cups that I gave it to someone that I knew would use it and love it).
On the tree part, DH sort of didn't like the 9 foot tree and we reduced down to about 6' last year. That was much easier to deal with.
Living with cats for the past 20 years kind of rules out decorations and a tree.
My avatar shows my cat in the tree a couple of years ago. I've had cats forever and none ever got in a tree. But the cat in the avatar loves the tree. She gets in it every year... With an artificial tree (I am allergic to real trees) that usually breaks the branches so we have run through 3 trees in 3 years. This year we have no large tree (we are remodeling) and just have a small ceramic tree. Next year...not sure what we will do.
I know that cash is more useful than 99% of gifts but it doesn't show much thought.
Oh, I don't agree in many cases. Well, in some cases, it doesn't show thought. But I have bought gift cards for people and spent just as much time selecting a card as I would a regular present. I am thinking about what is the perfect place for the gift card. I personally love to get gift cards particularly when it is for the type of place that I would like to go to or that I buy from and there are so many things I might want but would hesitate buying for myself.