Where are the christmas?

Last 5 years christmas seem to have descending popularity among most people. When I was a child, it used to be a time of rest, extremely good mood, nice christmas songs... Today it's mostly about presents buying madness. Spending the highest possible amount of money on gift in order to make good impression on people you are giving it to.
I think it will be much better to express sympatatethy to people directly, not by gifts. You know, things won't last forever, but valuable memories are hardly forgotten.
All I try to say by this is, that I really do not insist on getting any present. I just want people around me not to pretend whole year that everything is ok and on the christmas try to "cure" everything by giving me expensive gifts. No, thanks.

one of that kind of journals you certainly have read tenths of.
one quote at the end: A fashion is nothing but an induced epidemic. -George Bernard Shaw