Thread full of whiny holiday ********Follow

Yeah, I had a driver once who used a large, flat box as a ramp to climb over the other packages to the back of the truck. By the end of the night, it was totally beat up. We threw some duct tape on it and delivered it.

I think it was a kid's playground set, iirc.

Pay the shipping and you can have mine. And no, you don't need to follow my youtube channel. No joke, PM me if you want it, it's a few years old, but works as far as I know.

For friends that are similar to you the solution is not to buy each other gifts, but to buy yourselves gifts. Then compare lists until you reach an equal value exchange (might as well go big). So now, instead of buying $1000 worth of computer peripherals for yourself, you've instead spent $1000, have $1000 worth of laptop peripherals, but look like a generous and loving friend to everyone else for giving someone a $1000 manatee pelt jacket.

Christmas is all about thinking around social conventions.

Edited, Dec 23rd 2011 9:35am by Allegory

I know you believe you've accounted for it, but I think you're severely discounting the experience.

My friends and I bought another friend a PS3 for her birthday. It was the standard price, and the book value will pretty much be returned to us over the years as we continue to exchange gifts. You can subtract from that the opportunity costs of waiting to get it on sale or her being able to obtain something she tangibly desired slightly more for that price. But having our signatures on the bottom of that PS3, and her thinking about us every so often when she plays it, pushes it ahead. That's your "good will."

Ultimately you're trying to buy happiness. Asking why you should incur the inefficiencies of gift giving is like asking why you should incur the additional cost of buying a 40-ton printing press over the cost of 40 tons of raw steel. The materials you're buying are so little compared to the value of the effort to mold that into something meaningful.

So stop discounting the intangibles.