Gift Cards and Christmas

A couple days ago, I finally got that door that I wanted put in my bathroom on. Now I can do my thing in privacy. But now that Thanksgiving is over, the Christmas season is upon us. And that leads to gift giving and shopping.

I never go out and do the whole black Friday thing. No deal is good enough to drag my butt out of bed at 2 in the morning to go to the mall or any store. Getting up at 2 in the morning to go to work is another matter. But Black Friday is leading to the whole gift thing.

The "gift thing" is what I can really hate at times. I do a lot of online shopping to avoid the crowds but I do have a couple friends that love to go out and Christmas shop. When I go out with them I either go and just grab maybe one or two emergency gifts but I mostly go with them and window shop.

But every year there are these discussions about gift cards. It seems like most seem to day that they are cheap and kind of a cop out. My view is that it really depends on the situation and person. I like receiving gift cards and I give everybody in my family the gift cards on the places that I like to shop. But I am getting grief from my mother though. The two people that I usually go Christmas shopping with, I have already gotten their gifts and they are gift cards. My mother isn't giving me grief over the fact that they are gift cards but the amount of the gift cards and what the gift cards are. One of them is a $15 Starbucks gift card and one of my guy friends is obsessed with Starbucks coffee. Apparently, it's too much money spent on that friend. Guy friend #2 is getting a $15 Barnes and Noble gift card and it's the "he won't use it" bit. I know #2 would probably like a Subway or a Bath and Body Works gift card but his family seems to give him a ton of those. My reasoning is that he needs a new hobby not trolling dating sites and chowing down on Subway. My mother can turn anyone into a Scrooge when it comes to gifts because she is to the point of too critical so I have taken up with Internet shopping and not showing her any gift that I get for anyone. I'm not sure why she is that way but she is.