I just finished watching An Inconvenient Truth while wrapping Christmas presents. I feel guilty sitting here with the windows open in my huge apartment with the real Christmas tree with sparkling little lights. I'm sure that the heat is on (I can't control it) and I'm letting it fly out the window, and I know that live Christmas trees are ultimately bad for the environment. (But they smell so good!) I realize that I'm wasting a ton of paper (and by extension, trees, oil, etc.) and that some little kids somewhere were probably exploited while making some of the gifts I'm wrapping up. I know that I gave a ton of money to big corporations (most notably Borders, Target, and Mattel) in order to give the people I love gifts. (At least I'm not buying them a bunch of cheapo plastic things that will be thrown out in a few months, though.) It sickens me that the people of this town collectively spend about $50,000 at a bookstore each day in December while kids who live about 10 minutes away don't even have winter coats (not that they need them today because it's 43 degrees outside, but still).

So why do I do it? Because I like giving people gifts. It's fun to pick out the perfect DVD or book or kitchen utensil or whatever. I like surprising people and seeing them get happy when they get something they've been wanting or something totally unexpected. I used to be really averse to the forced shopping/gift-giving that goes along with holidays; I hate the idea of "having" to get someone a gift just because it's Christmas or their birthday. Recently I've been buying things for people whenever I see something that someone would like, which makes giving gifts much more enjoyable. The downside of this is that now I have SO many presents for everyone! They do look quite nice under the tree, though.