Comments on: You Can’t Give What You Don’t Have

By: Jared Healy

Jared Healy — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 16:08:45 +0000

I agree with you on the gift thing… I have noticed at least with my wife and her family that gifts are a much bigger thing.

It’s hard to change when there are so many good memories attached to Christmas time gifts.

This would be much easier to implement for birthdays. Lately we have started just treating the person to dinner out.

By: Ryan Healy

Ryan Healy — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 23:11:24 +0000

Thanks for the positive feedback, John (and Nicole). Great suggestion about the cards.

I haven’t read David Copperfield yet, but perhaps I should. I tried reading The Old Curiosity Shop once and just couldn’t get through it. Which made me shy of Dickens’ larger works.

By: John & Nicole Manley

John & Nicole Manley — Fri, 19 Oct 2007 22:42:32 +0000

Nicole says, "Way to go Ryan! We're on board with you!"

That's something we thought about many, many times.

It falls under the grey area I was talking about.

Actually, I just proposed a week or so ago to my wife that we record different "episodes" with our newborn son, doing fun and crazy things. Cut it together. Burn it onto DVDs, and give that to people. High perceived value (in our opinion... umm... my opinion) very low cost.

Other thought... if you just don't give gifts and write a nice card, saying money's too tight can't afford a gift, you'll quickly figure out who are your REAL friends and DEAREST relatives.

In fact, it may get rid of annoying people in our lives.

John & Nicole

PS We love Dickens. Read Scrooge a few times. Also, have you read David Copperfield. Mr. Micawber is the epitome of the man in debt.