Presents or money for Christmas?

[Zivot]

Do you give your kids presents or money for Christmas? I always buy something but I don’t know if I will manage to find something this year. How do you handle Christmas in your family?

[Isaac]

Money is a rather impersonal gift IMO —except from acquaintances or out of state relatives; people that don't actually know the recipient well enough to choose a meaningful gift for them. But even then it is still a bit impersonal, like getting a gift card from an employer... appreciable certainly, but not really memorable*, as the giver doesn't even know what was bought.

*The recipient likely won't remember this either. I remember gifts given to me from thirty years ago; I don't remember what I bought with any gift card from last year... though I remember getting the cards of course; and from whom.

I greatly prefer giving personality-specific gifts that are not generally interchangeable among recipients; a hard bound (paper) book for someone who loves the smell of old books, that might appreciate not only its contents, but even the binding. Or a rolling pin that cuts ravioli squares for the friend that lives to cook. A vinyl record for an obvious audiophile—one they don't (or no longer) have. An RC drone for one, a (good) calligraphy pen set for another. It should depend on the person that the gift is chosen for.

[Zivot]

That is true but I prefer to give money (actually gift cards) to teens who would spend that money on something they like, it is hard to find what they like. I always bought my kids big presents for Christmas because they have birthdays a month and two months after that so we give them big present for Christmas and for birthdays they got something small. It is better to give them an awesome thing for Christmas because they have time to play with it. And by time, I mean to spend an entire day on it. We got them Play Station that way one year, but this year I want to leave the technology at the door. I think I will buy them a foosball table because I have found one site called <redacted> where I have picked one pretty good quality table, I think it is Harvil. Now I only have to find a store which has it.

[Zo Kath Ra]

I remember someone linking to that foosball blog in another post, but I can't find it anymore, probably because it's been deleted for being spam. Is this spam?

[Isaac]

It honestly seems that way; that was my first thought, upon noticing a product link.

[Zo Kath Ra]

I've redacted the link, because it's probably SEO spam