I think it's sad that people are totally capitalizing on it by camping out to buy wii's and such for retail price, and then jacking them up a couple hundred bucks to sell them on ebay to parents who actually want to buy them for their children.

Other than that, I love Christmas and all the gift giving/receiving that ensues.

I love gift giving

We discuss it as a family ahead of time. For instance, this year all the kids get gifts, but no adults do except my parents and my husband's parents. Some years everyone gets gifts, some years we draw names. It just depends on the situation.

This year is the first year I've actually been making money, plus I got an unexpected bonus, so I'm being more generous this year than previous years. I don't buy presents for that many people--just my immediately family (mom, dad, sister), my boyfriend, and a couple close friends. I love Christmas and I know it can be over-commercialized, but I love that time spent on Christmas morning with my family--drinking coffee, listening to Christmas music, and opening presents.

I also don't consider acknowledging my family with gifts to be "materialistic" and "commercialized." I acknowledge their birthdays with gifts as well.

I love to give gifts, love it love it love it. I love finding something thats just absolutely perfect for a loved one, something so thoughtful that they'll cherish it. I love the look on their face when they open it up. I love gift giving so much I used to buy my younger sisters gifts from every paycheck I made, from the time I was 17 on up.

I enjoy gift-giving. It is as materialistic and commercialized as you want to make it.

i LOVE giving gifts. it makes me so happy to see peoples' faces when they open up i gift that they love!

This year, we've decided not to go crazy and put a number on how much we're spending on family members. There's just no reason to buy such expensive gifts. It's jsut a nice time to be together.

you guys put way tooo much though into it.

you buy gifts for ppl you want to give to.

if you can't afford it, the you buy the best you can or make gifts.

if you're really broke (ie.house in foreclosure) ppl will understand, and you wont get dirty looks.

it's that simple. you buy for who you want to give to.

I love finding something special for the people I love, but I'm not into the big ticket items. This year we did a major move and had to regroup with our careers so finances are tight. We still wanted to give gifts but explained to everyone we're having Christmas on austerity, and no one cares.

I love gift giving! Christmas, birthdays, other special days.

I think Christmas has been completely commercialized and has aided in creating a very materialistic society. I'm not against gift giving, I just think that it has come to the point that you are made to feel worthless if you don't buy gifts for everyone at Christmas. The only reason I bought this year is so that I'm not labeled the Grinch.
My boyfriend and I come from very different childhoods. I was spoiled for Christmas every year, and he was lucky to receive anything at all on Christmas morning. I know that when I got back to school from Christmas break, the teachers went around the class and asked everyone what their best gift was. That was all fine and dandy for me, but I couldn't imagine being my boyfriend sitting in class on those days. Waiting for your turn to come, and you had nothing, or you had to make something up.

I love giving gifts! But I won't lie, I like receiving too. I'm terrible at the whole secret thing though, and I usually end up blabbing what I got everyone before they open it. I really need to work on that.

i like to remember the special people in my childrens lives at christmas. I made cards for their teachers and coaches that were individual and then tried to match the gifts to the person. They weren't always BIG gifts, but they took a lot of time to put together. I enjoyed doing it this year more than in years past because my kids were old enough to be involved in the process and I had more time (my youngest is in school all day now).

gifts for my dh's family are a pain every year. we see them so seldom and how do you buy gifts for people you don't know? still they like to pretend once a year that we are a "big happy family" and one day a year i go along with it (sigh).

I think that Christmas has definitely lost the true meaning- God- as opposed to what to get gifts, but I think if the gift-giver has their head in the right place, it can be something great albeit materialistic. I love giving gifts- finding the perfect gift gives you the BEST feeling. I'd always thought that was a load of crap, but then I started actually caring thanks to a boyfriend who bothered to put more than 1 minute into my gifts.

if I had a family, I'd just have a discussion about what christmas really means, a "birthday cake for jesus", and go to church that day. there's no reason not to give gifts, but what's special about it shouldn't be solely about what you receive.

I love giving gifts, and receiving them too. My family is also in to the true meaning of Christmas too. We incorporate that too.

i love giving gifts-regardless of the time of the year. I´m quite broke right now so I´ll shall not be giving gifts this year, but when I have the resources i love to do so.
Maybe christmas is a bit too materialistic, and i loathe crowded malls.

I hate the gift-giving/receiving portion of christmas. When people ask me what I want, I tell them not to buy me anything. When I need/want something, I save my money and buy it myself. On the giving end, my financial situation is crap (college student, 0 extra income), and I never know what to buy people if I DO have money.

I love to give gifts and receive them! Yes, it can be too materialistic sometimes, but I find that the best gifts don't have to be expensive, as long as they are thoughtful!