So, here's an interesting question for you all...

Do you exchange gifts for Yule?

My folk and I do. We have a few traditions around it. Firstly, none of the shock and awe mountains of gifts so common in Christmas these days. Each gift is to be considered carefully for the person it's going to, personal in some way and preferably something that the person is not likely to get their hands on of their own accord. The important part, no matter how expensive or cheap, easy or hard to obtain, handmade or mass produced, the gift must be personally meaningful to the person who receives it.

My wife and I exchanged gifts tonight. For her I got a sewing machine and surger. I've known for a long time she's wanted to sew, and has been mudding through with needle and thread for a few years without being able to do the larger projects she wants because she doesn't have the time to hand sew them. She has refused to get them herself because she sees them as something that she would love to have, but ultimately expensive and out of her reach.

She got me a Soviet Officers pocket watch and a bottle of The Macallan. The first because she knows I'm fascinated with Soviet iconography, and have a few odds and ends in that vein already. Also, I've wanted a good pocket watch with visible gearing for a long time, because among my many geekeries is a love for the steampunk visual genre. She got me The Macallan for a couple of reasons, the first being similar to her attitude about the sewing machines; something I love but can't justify spending any portion of my meager paycheck on. The second because I've only ever owned one bottle of it, and it was drank in its entirety in one day by me and my first master, one of my best friends before he died.

These things are what my folk see as meaningful in a gift giving holiday. How about you and yours?