I'm going out on a curmudgeonly limb here to say that I'm tired of these articles that promote togetherness for the holidays, conveniently overlooking the fact that soooo many people have family halfway across the country, and traveling to them for Christmas would be the ultimate nightmare. Of Course I'd be together with family if that were the easy solution to a frugal and stuff-reduced Christmas!

At least in this family of two, the big issue is the distance. We can't be there, so we send stuff. If we were there, we'd have other options that might still meet expectations for celebrating, but like hundreds of millions of other people, we aren't. We do our best to give experiences and keep the spending down, but enough already with the Kumbaya Solution.

... climbs off soap box, scratches behind, wanders offstage.