Seasons Greetings From The Debt Destroyer!

• Fröhliche Weihnachten
• Joyeux Noel
• Feliz Navidad
• Mele Kalikimaka

These are the ways I know how to say Merry Christmas (My wife threw in the French one).

But lets not forget:

• Happy Hanukkah
• Happy Kwanzaa
• Happy Boxing Day

Happy Holidays!

Whatever you are celebrating this time of year, I hope you can make it special.

In my last post I mentioned that I’m not looking forward to the BIG Christmas Dinner with my extended family.  Well, I need to get over myself.

This past weekend was spent with my wife’s parents.  They originally were only going to make it a day trip, but then got stranded here for the whole weekend due to the weather.  At first I was disappointed in this because it was going to mess up our plans. Not only that but…

• They’d eat & drink everything we had (they did)
• Their dogs would poop & pee all over my yard (they did)
• They’d fill every square inch of our house with their stuff (they did)

But in the end, none of that mattered.

We had a great time with them. OK, “great” is stretching it, but lets say it was an enjoyable time.

In fact, after we had so much fun with my wife’s family, I’m actually looking forward to spending some time with my side (key word is “some”).   And while every holiday spent with family and friends is meaningful, I think this year with the economy taking a beating, it will be even more meaningful.

The fact that a lot of us are broke this year will help us understand that the holidays aren’t about finding that perfect present.

In my Black Friday post I included a video that brought up how Christmas has turned into a big commercial mess.  I wish I could say that I don’t fall into that mindset but I do.  While we spent less this year than we have in years past, we still spent more than we should’ve on a stuff that will be forgotten as soon as it is opened.

I think next year I’ll utilize sites like: www.redefine-christmas.org or www.charitygiftcertificates.org for the people who I can’t think of a unique and meaningful gift.  I think they’d appreciate that more than just some random gift that they have to pretend to like.

Using Redefine Christmas, I just bought my little sister a last second $10 donation to “Root of Peace”. She’s a hippy going into agriculture so hopefully she’ll enjoy it.

This year though I’m going to try to make the best of whatever situation I’m in.  Whether it’s my Mom complaining about everything or my Aunt Ginny passing gas and blaming it in on the dog.

Whatever comes up I’m going to make it special.

Happy Holidays,

-DD