The Christmas present challenge

Yes, I found it hard to reconcile Christmas with trying to be "green". For example: present shopping.

You don't want to give someone a crap present, right? And you don't want to be all sackcloth and ashes and puritanical, because it's Christmas and you're supposed to be celebrating, right? And yet ... there's all this other stuff you care about, so what to do?

A clever greenie friend has a good solution: make sure to give people things they want. She asks people what they want and tells people what she wants.

This is in fact what we always did in my family, and it's a good system. Even when you (obviously) can have a good guess that it's coming, opening up the paper on a gift that you really really want is still a great feeling. And likewise, it's pretty satisfying giving someone something that you know that they're thrilled with.

However, as a veteran I can give a key tip to avoid disappointment:

1. Don't pick an item that requires the exercise of personal taste. As a teenager I asked my (predictably) unhip middle-aged parents for new jeans for Christmas ... Result: misery.