An agreement not to buy anything for anyone is the ‘greatest gift you can give’ at Christmas, according to Guardian columnist Nell Frizzell.
The journalist and author does not exchange presents with anyone in her immediate family – including her four-year-old son.
In her latest column, she said the agreement has seen them “bestow on each other the gifts of time” in lieu of traditional presents – letting them avoid the Christmas shopping rush and enjoy the month of December however they choose.
On Newstalk Breakfast this morning, she said she hopes to keep it going as long as possible.
“I think actually the greatest gift I have given my family over the last four or five years is not expecting them to go shopping for me,” she said.
“Shopping is so awful – particularly in December and particularly in a pandemic. No-one wants to do it. I don’t want my mum to trawl down the middle aisle of some dismal supermarket, picking out a pair of fluffy pyjamas I’ll never wear.
“I would much rather she was able to stay at home in front of the tele and watch Poirot – which is all she really wants to do.”
Ms Frizzell said her young son still enjoys the magic of Christmas without the presents under the tree.
“My son is probably going to get some chocolate coins from one of his grannies because they cannot hold the troops and he will have a tree, he will have songs – he did a little concert at his nursery,” she said.
“He will get to play football with his dad on Christmas day and he will watch Christmas films – all of that stuff is magical.
“We all know what it’s like if you hand someone over a pot of moisturiser or a photo frame or a pair of socks – within about 20 seconds they have lost all interest and within a month it is probably in a charity shop and I don’t think this is how we should be spending our time.”
She admitted things might get a little harder when her son is older.
“He is four the poor guys so, who knows, maybe in about ten years’ time I will be one of those women trawling around with a trolley full of electronics I don’t understand but at the moment, I’m getting away with it,” she said.
The 37-year-old said she is not against presents in all circumstances – more the needless tick-the-box purchases the holidays sometimes demand.
“I can still remember a palpable flavour in my mouth when I got the King Louis toy I had begged for probably from about October and then it turned up in my house and it was completely magic,” she said. “But I can’t remember the 400 other things I got in the five years on the other side of that gift.”
“So, I’m not saying don’t ever give gifts again. What I’m saying is, let’s think about who we are giving presents to and why and whether there may be other gifts – time, attention, affection, focus, reading to someone, all that is worth doing.”
