To Christmas, or not to Christmas?

Thak proposed that we just not celebrate Christmas after this year. It is an interesting suggestion. With kids, I doubt we could really get away with just fully not celebrating it at all. We'd probably scale back to just a few small gifts, and then just a normal day.

It's funny. I mean, we only celebrate Christmas because society expects us to. I have no traditions. Thak has no traditions. We (or at least I) have no desire to make traditions of our own. It used to be a lot of fun to watch the kids open their gifts, but this year, Erin's gimme gimme attitude leading up to the holiday completely sucked all the fun out of that. Watching her open her presents was like watching vultures rip apart the rotting corpse of our bank account. Orren was still delightful. Next year, the kids get four gifts each. That's it. Trying to get her everything she wanted was ridiculous, and made me resent her big time. Because we spent so much on her gifts, we had no money to go out to dinner, and I STILL had to cook, and I hate to cook.

A huge reason I don't like the holidays, dread them all year, in fact, is because of the expectation of all this food. I have to bake all this shit I would never, in ten million years, eat, cook all these foods I don't care about, and then feed them to the same people who appreciate it just as little as they do every other day that I slave away in that kitchen and feed them. It is NOT a holiday if I have to set foot in the kitchen.

We have decided that we will try one more year to celebrate Christmas. These are the stipulations:

4 gifts per kid, no more, no less. (Stocking not included in that count.)
Me and Thak also get something, and it will be something well thought out and good.
All food comes from some kitchen that isn't mine.
We get out of the house and do something fun, like go to the movies.

If Christmas is still drudgery with these changes, we just won't celebrate it anymore. What's the point of doing something that makes us miserable?