Let`s admit it. Christmas, for devoted Christians, is a time in the year to commemorate the birth of Jesus Christ. For others, its simply a time to enjoy a peaceful feast with their families. For almost everybody, its a time to express their tremendous kindness of heart through the act of bestowing gifts upon their families, friends, neighbors and co-workers.

Many allot a significant part of their time and energy towards finding the most appropriate gifts for their respective receivers. These people are fueled by an innate fear, deeply rooted into western society - they fear of being considered as cheap. The problem? they are indeed quite cheap, and dont feel comfortable at all with spending massive amounts their surrounding environment dictates.

Businesses absolutely enjoy preying on these people.

Fear-driven shopping is great, for the salesman, of course. It usually translates into an instant, no-questions-asked, no-haggling-involved, sale. Just look at businesses which are either selling or advertising dietary pills, bed bug “solutions”, and terminal illness “cures” - they make tremendous amounts of money sucking the life of the lifeless.

Second best to fear-driven is impulse buying. Just ask the street hustlers what brings their clients to dark corners, willing to skin off their babies for another hit, and theyll say right off the bat - IMPULSE. If someone wants something and he cannot rationally explain that, he is hooked. You can give the poor bastard what he needs, if you have it, and he'll give you everything he has and beyond.

Third best is what I call cheapster buying. It's for those who want to buy something that looks expensive but in reality, is dirty cheap. They are usually shopping for someone they don't particularly care about - marking another one off a list. You can sell them crap in a box as long as it appears fancy.

So here are my thoughts on that:

1. If you don't particularly care about someone, just skip him. Creates some discomfort at first but gets you off at a better status quo next year.

2. If you insist on getting someone a present, make the minimal amount of effort and spend whatever others are spending. You don't need to spend more than that, and it's probable you can afford to spend as much as your coworkers.

3. If you have decided to cheap out and buy very inexpensive gifts, at least don't try to shop for inexpensive stuff that looks expensive because it never does. If you're buying something for 20 quid, where you know it should cost at least 50 quid, in all probabilities you are buying something of poor quality.

Instead you can always find inexpensive stuff which is personalized, funny or plain cute.

4. If you genuinely cannot afford Christmas presents, keep your head high. There's not shame in that. It's just a custom, nothing more. Those who are familiar with your situation will be sympathetic. Those who aren't would honestly don't care (do you remember who bought you what last Christmas? I bet you don't).