Ask HN: Anyone else dread the gift exchange part of Christmas?

I'm not a scrooge, I like Christmas. I like having some time off, being with family, having a nice meal.

The whole thing of exchanging gifts just fills me with dread. I know I'm going to get stuff I don't really need or want. I have my own money, if I need something I'll buy it for myself. At best it will be chocolate or alcohol, even though I'd like to stop drinking.

I suck at buying gifts for other people. I can buy gift cards but that's just transmuting money into something less valuable. I'll usually try to think of something I have in common with the person I'm buying for and buy a book or something, but from what it sounds like they usually get sent to the shelf graveyard.

I just feel like Christmas is excessively consumerist and wasteful. Not to mention all of this is creating excess pollution. Lots of us order things online, receive it in a cardboard box and plastic, unwrap it, only to wrap it back up in paper and plastic again. It's really silly.

I wish it was socially acceptable to say "don't buy me anything because I'm not buying you anything." My immediate family probably wouldn't take heed and my extended family definitely wouldn't. Then on Christmas Day I'll look like a real asshole, especially being a breadwinner.