I think I’ve officially quit the “gift-game.”  Every year, I have to play the Chinese-gift exchange with a group of people and every year, it turns into one of the most ugly things I’ve seen.  The rule is that the gifts have to be nice gifts, not gag-gifts, so the game quickly devolves into name-calling and hurt feelings:  the gift you brought wasn’t nice enough and no one wants it, you opened something that you really want and someone took it away, or someone gets mad at you for stealing the gift that they really wanted.  It’s just ugly.  One year, I “stole” a gift and the person I took it from got really nasty.  And it was just a gift card to Caribou.  One year, I brought a very pretty picture-frame set and it was the last thing picked and no one wanted it.  It’s just not a pretty game.

This year, I suggested that we find a game next year that didn’t bring out the worst in us, and someone else joked back, “this really brings out everyone’s true colors.”  That got me thinking.  Do we really want to say that about ourselves?  Do we really want to say that these are our true colors?

I mean, there are kids in our own city who are going to wake up on Christmas morning, not just without presents, but without heat and food.  Do we really want to admit to ourselves that our “true colors” are to be nasty to one another for some $15 gift that we don’t really even need?  There are people on the streets.  There are shelter animals being euthanized every day because of people’s “true colors.”

I don’t want to say that about myself.  Those aren’t my true colors.  So I quit.  Next year, I’m not going to participate in it.  I’m just going to remove myself from the situation altogether.

People wonder why I don’t get into the Christmas Spirit.  It’s because people treat each other like crap.  They push and shove at stores, they get upset when they don’t get what they want, they look at gifts they don’t want like they’re holding a terd.  Commercials are even worse than usual…how about Brooke Burke hocking those shape-up shoes?  Giving your sister a tighter butt, eh?  How about telling your sister that you really think that she’s got a huge butt and then giving her the shoes?  There’s some “true colors” for you!

Not doing it anymore.  I’m just not.  A $15 gift is not worth hurt feelings.

Bah, Humbug.