jp1
12-16-15, 11:49pm
Over time I've managed to reduce the number of people I feel obligated to give Christmas gifts to. Some just fell away when one or the other didn't send a gift one year. Some died. A couple I actually had conversations with where we agreed to stop sending gifts. This year I was down to two people to shop for. One is SO. I haven't bought him anything major, but I've bought a number of small things that he will enjoy because they involve me knowing him well enough to show that I actually pay attention to him and his interests. I will always buy gifts for him because I enjoy doing so.
The other is a friend who has no remaining family and I'm her best friend. We've been very close for 25 years. I've always just assumed that I'd always need to send her gifts since no one else likely will. A couple of days ago she surprised me with an email suggesting that since neither of us needs or is particularly wanting anything (we both make enough money at this point in our lives to pretty much buy anything we really want) that we not exchange gifts. I wrote back and suggested we each give to a charity that is important to the other, to which she agreed and sent info about a charity that she had already donated to a couple of weeks ago. Not surprisingly given my friend's personal circumstances it's an organization whose clients are teenage foster kids and as such who won't likely be getting gifts from anyone, so they are asking for gifts for their clients. I think it's awesome that she is aware that there are people whose lives are similar to hers and wants to do what she can to help them have a better Christmas and have happily sent some gifts for teenage boy clients of the organization (according to the organization the least likely to receive anything for the holidays).
Now to my question. Prior to our email conversation I had already planned to send her a few pints of Graeter's Ice Cream for Christmas. It's super delicious and she loves it. (and it's not going to cause more clutter in her apartment.) Plus she sent some of this ice cream to SO a couple of months back as an "I'm thinking of you pick me up" because he's been going through some significant ongoing health issues and was feeling down. My question, do I still send her some ice cream even though we've now agreed not to exchange gifts? Or perhaps dial it back to just a couple of pints as an acknowledgement of our friendship (instead of the six pints I'd planned on)? Or what? I think she'd really enjoy the ice cream, but I don't want to be the jerk who ignored our agreed upon plan.
The other is a friend who has no remaining family and I'm her best friend. We've been very close for 25 years. I've always just assumed that I'd always need to send her gifts since no one else likely will. A couple of days ago she surprised me with an email suggesting that since neither of us needs or is particularly wanting anything (we both make enough money at this point in our lives to pretty much buy anything we really want) that we not exchange gifts. I wrote back and suggested we each give to a charity that is important to the other, to which she agreed and sent info about a charity that she had already donated to a couple of weeks ago. Not surprisingly given my friend's personal circumstances it's an organization whose clients are teenage foster kids and as such who won't likely be getting gifts from anyone, so they are asking for gifts for their clients. I think it's awesome that she is aware that there are people whose lives are similar to hers and wants to do what she can to help them have a better Christmas and have happily sent some gifts for teenage boy clients of the organization (according to the organization the least likely to receive anything for the holidays).
Now to my question. Prior to our email conversation I had already planned to send her a few pints of Graeter's Ice Cream for Christmas. It's super delicious and she loves it. (and it's not going to cause more clutter in her apartment.) Plus she sent some of this ice cream to SO a couple of months back as an "I'm thinking of you pick me up" because he's been going through some significant ongoing health issues and was feeling down. My question, do I still send her some ice cream even though we've now agreed not to exchange gifts? Or perhaps dial it back to just a couple of pints as an acknowledgement of our friendship (instead of the six pints I'd planned on)? Or what? I think she'd really enjoy the ice cream, but I don't want to be the jerk who ignored our agreed upon plan.