Gift giving can be such a chore, a source of stress, and a huge waste of money. Will Lem end up Buying panic induced presents again this year? This Christmas, for various reasons, I found myself out of a budget for buying any gifts. The new year will bring some additional financial responsibilities, and on top of that I felt that I haven’t been particularly successful at reducing the student loan that is always lingering in the depth of my finances this year. To sum up, the thought of going out and buying presents specifically for the reason that Christmas is coming up weighed heavy on me. I wasn’t in the mood to bust my budget just for a few trinkets that don’t hold particular value or were bought without much thought. Our family had some brief stints with changing good ol’ German Christmas traditions over the past decades. One particular unsuccessful one was my father’s suggestion of changing the Gift-giving from the evening of the 24th to the morning of the 25th of December. His reasoning was that we could enjoy the evening more if there was no unpacking and no crying kids involved. My mother heavily objected. Instead […]

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