Although I'm employed, and business for my company was really, really strong in 2008 and 2009 contracts are signed and look great, we are aggressively containing our expenses.

In a good year, we don't really "do" the gifting thing at Xmas, limiting total spending to $500 or less on all purchased gifts.

This year, we dropped that budget by half. The kids got a few handmade gifts, one or two store bought ones, and that's it. My wife and I didn't exchange gifts. Instead we had a really nice dinner of Goose today (MMM!) and it was good.