How do I stop the gifting insanity at the holidays?
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Anonymous
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Now that my husband and I have grown siblings with families of their own, the gifting at the holidays has gotten out of hand. We have 4 sets of grandparents (multiple divorces), 11 nieces and nephews, and multiple sets of married siblings. My little sister’s birthday is on Christmas and she loves the holiday so any time I have raised the issue (“hey, maybe we could scale the gifts back this year now that we all have families of our own…”) with my family my mom always acts like I’m being Scrooge (“you know you need to talk to your sister about it because Christmas is her favorite holiday and it’s her birthday.”). I have raised the issue with my sister and she gets sad, so the most I’ve been able to do is convince her that my siblings don’t need to buy for each other. But that means I still end up buying for 11 nieces and nephews when we all have way too many toys, anyway. My DH and I also stretched to buy a house last year so I know me bringing this up will be perceived by my family as me being cheap and having spent too much on our house (our families live outside the DMV and don’t understand the real estate market here).
How can I let people know we want to stop buying gifts for everyone without looking like the cheap ahole? Our families are scattered and don’t get together at the holidays, and attempts to buy smaller gifts I have made in the past have pissed people off (my MIL once hurled a “all you got me for Christmas was that little calendar” at my DH - which was a custom wood block calendar I had made just for her with pictures of her grandkids. DH said he would get her something else that year and never did). I just do not have it in me this year to figure out gifts that every family member can buy for my kids and to tend to their excessive questions and expectations, nor do I want to purchase a million gifts for family members who either don’t need them (adults) or kids who already have too much stuff. |
Anonymous
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Just stop. When you aren't reciprocating, they will stop buying too.
When they ask what the kids want, explain up front that you aren't doing extended gift giving this year, but they are welcome to surprise them if the spirit moves them. Don't give a list to anyone who isn't getting a gift from you. Just buy your parents (or if you can't afford all that, just the parents who raised you) a Christmas gift and your sister a birthday present. Or, buy each family a family gift, like a food basket. Or tell everyone you donated to a charity in their name since there is so much need this year. |
Anonymous
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I usually don't give presents.
If ever I do, to small children for example, they're always inexpensive. That sets the tone for reciprocation. |
Anonymous
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Totally understand, OP.
For the nieces and nephews can you suggest a secret Santa? You could even open all the gifts together over FaceTime/ zoom to see who gave them the gift. We did this growing up and now with our kids and their cousins. The gift giving was out of control. Otherwise, you just have to stop the madness and break the cycle. I hate giving gifts to my siblings/ their spouse. We are all financially comfortable and trading $50 gift cards seems silly. If you stop giving gifts to everyone, feel no guilt! Move on. Let them talk about you and just smile. Life will move on. |
Anonymous
| We do one gift for our siblings families. Usually a board game. I don’t buy for my nieces and nephews. We keep parents gifts around $50 for both. There are just too many of them. We have five kids. Three of them are married. Two grandkids. Those are the ones I focus on. |
Anonymous
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Make it clear now.
Do a Secret Santa of not more than $50. Parents and grandparents can give to their own kids/grandkids but it has to be given privately. |
Anonymous
| Do an exchange |
Anonymous
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OP, the only thing you can control is your behavior. You cannot control the behavior of others and you cannot control their perception of you.
The way to do this is to contact everyone right now and say "I wanted to let you know before you made any purchases that, unlike previous years, we are not exchanging gifts with any extended family this year. Thanks for understanding." Then people will be annoyed and badmouth you, but within a year or two they will stop, and you will continue to enjoy simpler holidays. If they ask, you can say "We've felt spiritually disconnected and decided to focus on charitable giving and the deeper meaning behind the holiday. We want to help the kids appreciate what they already have. I know everyone in our family is well off and well cared for, so we are targeting our budget on the less fortunate." It doesn't matter if it is BS. It's really none of their business anyway. |
Anonymous
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You can easily do it, but if there is any family dysfunction it is hard to do it without ruffling feathers. We ruffled the feathers. It was worth it. Now we do still give to a sibling of my husband who struggles financially-either something he has asked for or cash or both. Most people are doing well financially. If it's really important to them we give, but we let them know we the gift is just time together for us and we don't have room for stuff.
That said, we have family who go discount shopping in January or right after Christmas and keep stuff in the closets all year waiting for Christmas so we gave everyone a one year notice. |
Anonymous
If they are crazy obsessed with gifts, they will badmouth you longer. I have a sibling like this. Because it's so important to her, we asked her adult children what they want and they want checks so we send them. We do not send her gifts though because she is an adult with many millions of dollars which she reminds of frequently. We told her no need to give us gifts, but she still just can't resist thrift shopping and giving us sweaters with holes and other stuff in bad shape. |
Anonymous
| It is not your job to coax your entire family to scale back. Inform the gift buyers that YOU and your family are no longer participating in holiday gift giving and you suggest they don’t buy anything for you either. |
Anonymous
| My husband's siblings are like this. Oh, and they don't believe in lists, so we're stuck spending $50 per adult sibling on crap that they don't want/don't like. My husband agrees with me but doesn't want to ruffle feathers. We tried to get out of it last year, his siblings still bought stuff, and we just looked like the jerks for not buying for everyone. |
Anonymous
| I agree OP it’s terrible. It took me years and years to get rid of adult sibling gift exchanges at the holidays but I did. I’d love to get rid of niece/nephew gifts (meaning my kids wouldn’t get gifts from aunts/uncles either) and frankly I’d like to stop exchanging with our aging parents who don’t want anything either. I think the gifts should stay in the nuclear family only. I know this won’t ever happen but it’s how I feel. |
Anonymous
+1,000,000 |
Anonymous
| Buy everyone a book. Every year. |