Maybe this will be the year for good wishes, loving thoughts and no gifts. When Santa, the spirit of Christmas formerly known as Mr. Big Box, slips only a few envelopes under the tree.

Envelopes not with gift cards but with little notes inside that read something like, “A donation has been made in your name to (some worthy cause) and whose selfless efforts will lead to greater peace and harmony than by my going to the mall to buy you something you can’t afford to buy for yourself and I really can’t either.”

It could be our good karma Christmas. A day on which we gather with our family and give out good cheer but nothing that comes in a box with a gift return slip taped inside.

This no-gift option is something that Father Christmas and I are thinking of presenting to our immediate kin. It will have to be decided soon because we are a gift-giving family. We have tried downsizing. We’ve set price limits. We’ve drawn names so that we only give to one person. Then we amended that plan to allow side presents for everyone else in the form of stocking stuffers. But sweaters and salad bowls don’t fit inside even jumbo stockings. So people went ahead, bought big and stacked their over-sized items on the floor under the appropriate stocking, taking us back to the old days of piles of presents for all.

There isn’t a Santa we know who isn’t short on jingle this year.

But without presents, why get up before dawn on Christmas morning to dive under the tree? Could we still have our ritual without the main attraction? We could sit around in our pajamas and play our favorite Gladys Knight and Mariah Carey Christmas albums and still indulge in the Christmas morning menu of bagels, lox and cream cheese and some form of brandy to splash in the coffee.

Still, rituals are hard to break and no one wants to be called a Scrooge but really (and I’m rehearsing now) everyone’s on a tight budget. There isn’t a Santa we know who isn’t short on jingle this year. Yet our family is lucky to be among the employed and the housed, and we still have our health and can buy lox. But there is a growing band of needy out there. So let’s suck it up this year and share with those who don’t have a choice where to put their money.

But what do we tell the grandkids? Do we announce, “Well, Christmas is really about spending time together so have a bagel” or do we make an exception? There is the Christmas story told in our family about one small child so overwhelmed by the number of gifts piled up around her feet that she started crying and kicking them away. That child, now the mother of two, has already requested that we please keep it to a minimum.

How about this new twist to the family ritual? We choose our favorite local agency or organization that constantly gives to our community – a school, library, women’s shelter, clothes closet or food bank and write a modest but meaningful check. We go lean with the kiddies but still get to scope out the cool new things painted red with wheels at the toy store and thereby contribute to the local economy.

And for the adults, I’m thinking books. Real ones, to encourage the art of reading and writing, to save our independent book stores and to preserve that other ritual that sometimes takes place over Christmas, when things go quiet and you take yourself to a cozy chair by the tree, open your book and a new story begins.