Like too many others, our extended family on both sides has given up on the ancient tradition of buying gifts for everyone they love. Few of us can afford to buy that many gifts, and it’s likely that the affluent minority wouldn’t have a clue about our interests, hobbies, or character traits. Heck, I don’t even know what some of them do for a living.
Some years we’ve agreed to buy gifts only for the kids, who were easier to treat as interchangeable when they were younger. As they’ve aged, they’ve become just as finicky and inscrutable as their parents. The process might be simpler if we lived near each other and/or spent time together. I hear that works well for some families. It’s not that we hate each other — if that were the case, Christmas gatherings wouldn’t be scheduled in the first place. But we seem to be a bit more fractured and preoccupied with our own doings than those families you see in movies or TV shows that do everything together. We can glean minutiae about each other from Facebook, but in most cases it’s not enough to influence our major Christmas purchasing decisions.
For the last few years, some factions in our families have livened up Christmas gatherings with a white elephant gift exchange. You chip in for a gift; you receive a random gift in return. It’s a way to say “I acknowledge you as part of the family” without designating a specific person as the recipient of the sentiment. More succinctly put: “Dear whoever: you technically matter.”
When you’re sitting at a ballpark or other sports stadium, the crowd is doing the Wave, and you see the crest heading straight for your section, do you rise and raise your arms in rhythm with your neighbors? Or do you scowl, remain in your seat, and lecture your friends about how the Wave is conformist tomfoolery?
Particularly near and dear to me this year are those who have read, followed, and actively supported me in my endeavors regarding my writing in general and this site in particular, now seven months old and not yet crashed or burnt. Any forms of feedback, from the simplicity of clicks to the extreme generosity of comments, have meant the world to me as I continue this process of exploration, experimentation, and indulgent navel-gazing. While the value of such input into my process is sometimes hard to quantify, the WordPress.com sensors insist that earlier this week marked MCC’s crossing of the 1000-Like threshold. I had no idea they tracked such statistics to that extent. I can’t believe they even have a dashboard icon for it (pictured). The longtime high-traffic bloggers among you probably enjoy this response level as a twice-weekly event, but a small fry like me is in no position to take any forms of encouragement for granted. Obviously I try not to rely on Likes as the foundation for my self-image, but I can’t deny that it’s nice to have some kind of measuring tool (no matter how unscientific) to confirm that I’m not necessarily applying this particular skill set on a daily basis entirely in vain. 
Of all our household’s rules and guidelines that aren’t Scripture quotes, one of the simplest and most scrupulously enforced in our family is four simple words: Wednesday is Guy Night. What we call “Guy Night”, normal people call “father/son quality time”. Then again, normal people rarely use the word “enforce” in that conversation.
