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Reply to "In laws say they will not exchange gifts with us adults this Christmas, only kids. I'm sad. "
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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]In OP's second post came an interesting point: her in-laws otehr child is a young adult who buys gift cards for everyone that he can not afford. Do yo think in-laws stopped the madd gift giving to make sure that young person doesn't spend money he might not have trying to out-do your fabulous gifts? Maybe they feel embarrased that you can give so much and that he can't and he tries to over-compensate with gift cards. Maybe he just hates having to live up to you and asked his parents for a stop on the grown-up gifts. You might try to be a little sensitive to other people's needs and desires. Its not all about you.[/quote] But the student brother probably received more than he gave, or should have. And if he was maxing out his budget buying gift cards, whose fault is that? If he feels like he will be judged for giving a gift of less monetary value, then that indicates there is either a problem in family relationships/dynamics/communication and/or he is really competitive or insecure. Eliminating the exchange of gifts will not solve any of those issues, but it IS a good way to model conflict avoidance. Setting a limit on spending won't solve it either, but will help if it is a personality/maturity issue. When I was a student and even when I worked but had very limited income, I shopped for gifts all year long, taking advantage of sales, coupons, etc. I also shopped at thrift and consignment stores (would only buy if it was like new/ had tags). One year I gave each person a book with photo bookmarks (printed on computer and laminated at copy shop). Sometimes, people who claim they cannot afford to give gifts really mean to say they can't afford to give the gift they would like to be able to give or feel expected to give. Other times what they mean is that they can't afford to give gifts AND spend money on other, discretionary things for themselves that they might not want to give up, like their daily trip to Starbucks or on demand movies or iTunes purchases, etc. Its about choices. Of course, for a minority of Americans, there is no choice, but that's not the situation that was described here. [/quote]
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