Today is the first of December. I haven’t even opened the first door on my Advent calendar of tea–one of many secular ways of counting down toward Christmas. And we’ve only just lit the first Advent candle on this the first Sunday of Advent–a more religious means of tracking the days until to Christmas. And I’m already grumpy.

The Buy Nothing Facebook group I belong to mandates that all posts begin with either the word “gift”’ or the word “wish”. If you want to give something away you label it gift. If you’re looking for something, you label it wish.