I come from a small family, and we’re all established adults. We are not the sort of people who should be buying each-other Christmas presents.

Christmas presents should be things that you want, but weren’t able or willing to buy for yourself. Those frivolous things that you don’t really need. Well, we’re all at points in our lives where we buy those things for ourselves, the instant we want them. But this isn’t about our compulsive consumerism. It’s about how hard it is to buy presents for someone who doesn’t need anything and how messed-up the spirit of the season can become.

Enough intro – here’s the idea:

Each one of us has a category: The spending limit is $10.00 and you buy for everyone from within your category. You get the fun of buying odd things for people; everyone has presents to open on Christmas morning (and isn’t the opening the most fun part?); there’s no stress and money goes to better things and to people who need it.

The first year we did it, the categories were pretty normal: Books, toys, treats, toiletries, gadgets etc. Then, things got weird, as they do in a family of intellectual over-achievers. My mother decided her category the next year would be “Purple”, my Aunt Margaret went for “Despair”, Chrissy’s was “Harvest”.

For the past three years I’ve had “Gourmet” – which is the best one. You can do wonders with $10.00. A tiny bottle of $10.00 olive oil is truly fine oil. Last year I gave my step-father two $5.00 chocolate truffles. Apparently, they were fantastic. Auntie Chrissy is starting to grumble, I’ve had to let her be “Gourmet” next year.

I have 12 months to decide, what should my category be for Christmas 2006?

Footnote: My cousin Nhai is 9-years-old. We exempt her from the category rule and she gets a typical kid’s Christmas windfall.