Christmas is always an odd time of year for me.

I don't do presents on Christmas. Haven't for about nine years now. Instead, I usually give about $200 worth of toys (try to make it somewhere around 40-50 within that full amount) to charities.

I grew up in a poor family, and I watched my parents scrape and scrounge for money to put something under the tree for my brothers and I. It wasn't always that way; at one time, there was money. It wasn't MONEY, mind you, but we weren't living paycheck to paycheck. Unfortunately, things took a nosedive in my dad's particular industry and money became something we had to worry about. It caused a lot of arguments in our house. A LOT of arguments.

Things have worked out since then, but as a kid, it was tough. I've had at least six Christmas days in my life where there were zero presents under the tree and the day was either filled with my parents arguing about money issues or we just sat down and enjoyed the fact that we had a Christmas dinner to eat at all.

I doubt many know what it's like to go to school after Christmas break and say "nothing" when you were asked by fellow students what you received for Christmas, only to be met with a reply of "oh yeah, because you're poor." As if it's something dirty, something foul... It was worse whenever the teachers would want to do a show-and-tell of what you got for Christmas. I would try to pawn off previously bought things as new toys, and it worked sometimes.

Regardless of all that, I appreciate that my parents would...on most Christmas holidays...scrape together whatever they could, try to cut some corners here and there, and take the time to try as hard as possible to get just one present under the tree for my brothers and I. While some people will take for granted an action like this, I never did. My parents wanted us to have something nice, something new. Even if it was some little pop-cap gun from the dollar store, it meant something to us.

After college, I was making money and decided that I would give presents rather than receive them. It didn't stop some people from giving me presents in the beginning, as they literally thought I was saying "don't get me anything" as some kind of reverse psychology or something. Eventually, they realized that I wasn't kidding. I didn't want any presents. If anything, I wanted THEM to offer presents to those less fortunate.

Nowadays, people around me realize my goals during the Christmas season. Money is a piece of green paper to me, and if it can buy a toy to put a smile on some kid's face for Christmas, even if they will toss the toy to the side after an hour of playing with it like most kids do, then that's fine by me.

This year, I celebrate my second Christmas with my girlfriend, and she still hasn't understood it. I imagine it's tough to understand when the world you were raised in does not match up to where I came from. That's not a slight against her at all. She's the most amazing thing in the world that's ever happened to me, and she's an incredibly kind-hearted woman. However, from where she comes from, people have houses in nice neighborhoods, about 10 presents for each of the 30 people in their family at Christmas, and unwrapping presents can take an hour. In my family, unwrapping presents takes about 4 minutes and then it's on to watching claymation movies. Her Christmas day involves singing hymns, eating a wafer and drinking some grape juice. I'm agnostic (and she's not of a particular faith herself, but her family are good ol' Southern Baptist Texans). At my family's house, my parents say grace before dinner and that's about it...and that's only been in the last three years since they converted. At her family's house, they play games and do activities for hours on end, laughing and giggling...even if some of them may have problems. In my house, we'll shoot some darts on the patio while we smoke some cigarettes and drink some beer.

It's odd, existing between these two worlds...when the whole time, all that I truly want for Christmas...is to be home alone with her. Just the two of us, sitting down, watching a Christmas movie and eating some ham from a lunchmeat package.

In the past, I thought I knew the Christmas that I wanted to always have when I grew older. At 31, I'm still discovering that I don't know what the hell that I want.

However, I've known for a while that there is one thing that I want: for no child to have to know what it's like to see an empty floor under the tree.

Donate a toy this year, folks. Do someone a solid. Thank you.

Until next time, piece.