My kids bought me shoes for Christmas. I desperately needed new shoes because mine were so old that I wore a hole in the bottom of the right one, and I couldn’t go outside in the rain without instantly soaking my sock. Plus, I went for a walk last week, and wore a hole in my right sock. I appreciated the gift very much.

As I’ve grown older and more curmudgeonly, I dislike receiving gifts more and more. It started back when Bonnie and I first met. Her family would get together at least once a month to celebrate whatever birthdays or holidays fell in that month. At Christmas and my birthday, her sister and sisters-in-law would give me some of the most garbage presents you can imagine. They were almost offensive.

I know I sound ungrateful because it’s supposed to be the thought that counts, but no thought was put into these gifts. They were mostly toys, but not even cool toys; they were dollar store toys. I asked Bonnie why they were always giving me toys, so she asked. They said it was because whenever we would go over to their houses, I would play with their kids’ toys. I wouldn’t characterize it as that, exactly.

When I would go to their houses, I would sit down on the sofa, instantly get bored with whatever Bonnie and her sister or sisters-in-law were talking about, and entertain myself by picking up the nearest object, which happened to be toys because they were always lying all over the place. To somehow construe that as being some sort of toy aficionado is tantamount to assuming that someone who owns a lot of cars enjoys spending time at the DMV.

The final straw was when my sister-in-law gave me a jar of pickled onions for my birthday. From that point on, I took the stance that if you’re only giving a gift because you feel obligated to do so, then just don’t give a gift.

We just can’t help ourselves, though, can we? Birthdays, anniversaries, Valentine’s Day, Christmas, Chanukkah; the gifts never stop coming. They hook us when we’re young. Here you go, little one, the first one’s free. Then we spend the rest of our lives chasing the dragon.

About a month ago, when Bonnie was dragging out the Christmas tree, and I was grumbling as I do every year, she said, “Why do you hate Christmas?” “It’s not that I hate Christmas,” I explained, “It’s just that no Christmas will ever be as good as 1985, so why do we even bother?”

1985 was the gold standard of Christmases as far as I’m concerned, and the crazy thing is, it wasn’t even about the presents. In fact, I can’t tell you what I got for Christmas that year. I just remember it was the best Christmas party we ever had, I got to hang out with my friends and family, the vibes were on point, and I probably got a lot of cool shit the next morning.

The point is, Christmas 1985 felt so good that I spent the next several decades trying to recapture the way I felt that year, but it’s gone, and it’s never coming back. Then, I had kids and thought maybe, if I did everything that we used to do at Christmas time, I might get that feeling back, but it seemed like the more I tried, the further it slipped away.

So, this Christmas, I didn’t try. Bonnie and I agreed not to get each other anything, and she handled the gifts for our kids, so all I did on Christmas morning was show up. While I sat there, watching them open their presents, I had a thought that had never occurred to me before. Even if I could never feel as good as I did at Christmas when I was seven years old, I’ve still felt good at Christmas in the years since, and it’s always been for the same reason: Anticipation.

The years when I’ve gotten Bonnie or the kids something really special, something I know they’re really going to love, the anticipation and excitement of buying the gift, hiding it, wrapping it, putting it under the tree, and then watching them open it, is the same feeling as the build-up to Christmas morning when I was a kid. I missed that this year.

My cynical take is that hooking kids on Christmas when they’re babies is just a grand capitalist conspiracy to keep the engines of finance thoroughly lubricated. But maybe it’s not so sinister. Maybe, like everything else about parenting, it’s about the reversal of roles; the give-and-take. We give our children presents because we remember how much fun it was to open presents on Christmas morning, but then we discover that it feels even better to see the look of joy on their precious little faces. And so the cycle continues.