But wait... there's less!

I like Christmas, but it's a little bit ruined by advertising that keeps telling us to spend more. This is one of the bluntest - it straight out says that the path to happiness is spending. Of course, more accurate (but less grammatical) slogans would be: the more the stressier the more the costlier the more the debtier the more the exhaustinger (from shopping) the more the wastier (of food and unwanted gifts) But of course it's not the shops' job to tell the truth. Their job is selling. Perhaps it's our job to realise that it's nonsense and to focus on what really makes Christmas merry. If you'd like your Christmas to be more about love and giving than about shopping and credit cards, why not grab my free Christmas Resource . It's got 5 websites to help your Christmas have less stuff and more joy. Have yourself a merry little Christmas.

I'm not the first person to suggest that we shouldn't give gifts to adults (they just result in stress and waste) but I can give you an example of why. The mid-way birth-day Midway between my wife's birthday and mine, my sister gives us a combined gift. That's a good idea - to cut present stress by half. So what was it? As gifts go it was a reasonable thought. My wife and I enjoy board games and the TV series Doctor Who, so the Doctor Who version of Monopoly seemed like a good gift idea. Except that another friend had the exact same idea. Now we have two of the same game. What to do with the extra gift? A gift is meant to be an enjoyable experience for the receiver, but here's what happened: We thought of re-gifting it, but can't think of anyone who's a big fan of both Doctor Who and Monopoly. We decided to sell it online. At least that way my sister won't have completely wasted her money. So far three people have contacted us but none have fol...