How do I get my family to stop sending unwanted gifts?

[Anonymous]

My family has had an official policy of no gifts for adults at Christmas. We have a big family (four adult siblings, my parents, plus everyone is married and has kids, so obviously everyone has ILs as well), so this policy is a great relief to me -- the stress of trying to buy gifts for everyone was so much, especially since we live far from everyone and had to have everything shipped. So now we just do small gifts for the children and send cards.

But every year, my parents and my older brother violate the policy and send us gifts. We have asked several time that they stop. They think it's a question of feeling like we need to reciprocate and tell us we don't need to send anything. It is partly that -- I feel weird accepting gifts when we did not plan to send anything. And if we do send something to reciprocate, that is also weird because we are not sending anything to other family members so it feels very uneven.

But it's also that we specifically don't want these gifts. We live in a small apartment. They constantly send us housewares and decor we don't have room for and that do not go with anything in our house. This year we received huge cocktail glasses from my brother AND huge Christmas-themed coffee mugs from my parents. We don't have room for any of them, nor did we need them at all. In previous years we have received large kitchen unitaskers, framed art, and other items that we don't know what to do with.

How do I stop this? I have asked multiple times but they keep coming. Most of these things wind up on the floor of my bedroom closet because we don't have anywhere to put them but I feel guilty getting rid of them. The floor is now overflowing and now I have all this novelty drinkware... what do I do? I love them but I do not understand why they won't just do the thing we all agree to do. It stresses me out every year. Help!

[Anonymous]

OP, sorry you feel bad. That's on you. Get over it.

[Anonymous]

If you've asked and they haven't listened, you've done everything you could. Not every problem has a solution. I don't say it to be judgy, just telling you what I have learned after many years of living with "deaf" inlaws.

[Anonymous]

Obviously they didn't "all agree"

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure there is much you can do except get over any guilt for immediately giving these things away or donating them since you are the only one you can try to control. You could tell them that's what you'll be doing because you really don't have any space. They are probably the type where gift giving is their love language.

[Anonymous]

Feeling guilty about donating this stuff is your problem to fix. If you know you don't want it and can't use it and don't have the space for it, get rid of it ASAP. Or regift it if it's something someone else you know would like.

And stop feeling like you need to reciprocate. Just be clear every year that you're not exchanging gifts. If they do it anyway, it's because they want to.

[Anonymous]

Keep a box in the closet and toss the gifts in there, when full drop off at a donation spot. That's what I do with things from my mother that we have no use for.

[Anonymous]

Some people‘s love language is giving gifts. It brings them joy. So I would take a picture of everything boxed up going to Goodwill to remind them of your preference, how gifts are going to waste and then if they do it again let it go and let it be.

[Anonymous]

From my experience, there's not much you can do. You can keep repeating yourself every year and hopefully after a decade or so, it will eventually "start" to sink in. That's what we've done. My husband has said it nicely, not so nicely, and he has also said it very angrily - to his own parents. I also stopped sending thank you cards for the gifts, because I think it just kept it going. We thank them when they gift us, and leave it at that, and then donate if we don't need it.

The pandemic was the only thing that really scaled down the gifts - this year my in-laws only gave one huge gift to each of our children, and then maybe 10 or so smaller gifts for each of them, and actually finally skipped presents for us adults. I think it's just like one of my MIL's hobbies to go shopping for things and also fills some emotional need for her because she grew up with crappy Christmases envying other children who received gifts. So to take that away from her, I realized it is like asking her to give up one of her greatest and most enjoyed hobbies, and also one of her dearest coping mechanisms for dealing with the trauma from her past.

[Anonymous]

Donate or put a Free sign on a box and leave it on the curb every time it happens. You can eadvertise when you do this on a Freecycle, local Craigslist or local FB group.

[Anonymous]

Donate the gifts to some charity that gives housewares to peoplr to have to start from scratch. Leave other stuff out for free or donate to a local thrift shop.

You don't have to keep the gifts and you can't control others, just ask them nicely like you've been doing.

[Anonymous]

Return, sell, or donate.

If you feel you can say something, tell them you just don't have space for anything in your small place and it is truly a gift not to receive household items. You could try to redirect the impulse -- "We agreed not to exchange gifts, but if you really feel you cannot stop then please consider gift cards or food/drink. Or, put the money aside and use it to come visit me / take me to dinner in the future." If you say something, repeat it in the autumn before they buy next year's gifts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some people‘s love language is giving gifts. It brings them joy. So I would take a picture of everything boxed up going to Goodwill to remind them of your preference, how gifts are going to waste and then if they do it again let it go and let it be.

That third sentence was not what I expected after the first two.

[Anonymous]

I would save some stuff and regift it... lol. The rest I would donate. Not much else you can do.

[Anonymous]

I had to really yell at my mother about this to get her to stop. I also have a tiny apartment and don't have space for everything. She asked for a want-list for my birthday, and I sent a list with four things. She got me ALL FOUR. So when she asked for a list for hanukah I told her "Four things for my birthday was way too much and made me uncomfortable so I decided two are for my birthday and two are for hanukah. Thank you!"

If I didn't give a list she thought bigger was better, more was better, etc.

You have to tell your mom "I really need you to NOT get me stuff. I know you want to show your live this way, but I feel UNLOVED when you do this because you don't listen to me. I keep saying I don't have space for these things, I don't need them - it stresses me out to find a spot for them. Right now they're all on my closet floor because I don't have space in my cabinets for them."