Dreaming of a gift-free Christmas

Or at least a only homemade gifts for the immediate family only Christmas. I dread Christmas Eve, I truly do. I love my DH's family but their Christmas gifting habits are beyond extravagant and ridiculous. It is expected that *everyone* buy a gift for *everyone else*. All adults except for our 2 kids. Absolutely insane! My MIL as a protest has been donating money to Habitat to Humanity the last 2 years and my SIL donates to a cancer charity. The first year they did it I thought it was because they didn't want to have to bother with shopping and didn't like Christmas or something. I get it now. I am okay with the idea celebrating Christmas for my mom and extended family, but not in a consumeristic fashion like is expected. My ideal Christmas would be my individual family finding more meaning in the seasonal aspect of the "holiday", making each other a few small gifts and then joining the rest of the family for Christmas dinners, minus the usual gifting. I have a lovely vision not of sugar plums dancing but of a holiday where the ideas of simplicity, love and family were truly cherished instead of a contest as to how much electricity we can use up with our Christmas lights and how high we can stack presents around a tree.

I think I am going to remake dd's Waldorf doll for a gift for her (it needs an arm sewn back on, new yarn hair and a new dress- easy for me to do with what I already have) and make a stuffed animal for ds out of recycled sweaters which I already have on hand. I am not sure if Z and I are going to exchange gifts or not as we are both still harboring feelings about the excess of last year's celebration. Might make wreaths or swags from trees in our yard (plus I have tons of holiday ribbon) to give to Z's parents and my mom but not actually on Christmas. I've been wanting to make wreaths anyway! Still really not looking forward to telling everyone that we are not participating, but we need to do it soon as they probably have already started shopping. *sigh* Its October and the Christmas stuff has been out in the store for awhile now.