h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

This year I have decided not to get frustrated wondering what people want for Christmas, wasting hours picking thrugh catalogues and ending up giving someone something they neither really wanted nor needed.

The solution to getting presents that are appreciated is to buy them for people who *really* need gifts and let the friends and relatives you would have bought presents for know what you have actually spent the money on.

My method was to tally up the amounts I planned to spend on all friends and relatives and then go to a charity website and pick out a range of gifts that came to about the same value. Prior to doing this I contacted most of the people who would be missing out on bottles of wine and so on, and without exception they were very happy to go along with this plan.

I used the Oxfam website, but there are others equally good. The drawback to my method is I can't send the nice cards provided by Oxfam to the larger number of people who the gifts are shared between.

The process was fairly quick and easy, not needing much cogitation, as I know the people I've spent the money on will really appreciate *any* of the gifts purchased.