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[quote=Anonymous]
Some people truly love to pick out gifts, and it's important to them. But I agree that it gets out of hand. You may find your relatives much more receptive to the idea of secret Santa than the idea of going cold turkey and doing no gifts at all.

Definitely set a dollar limit on secret Santa or it turns into a problem if some givers spend a lot more than others. Next time folks will feel they need to keep up and will overspend.

If someone agrees to secret Santa but then still brings out a gift "because I just couldn't resist it! I know we're only supposed to do secret Santa but this was perfect for little Sally!" you just smile and say thanks. You really can't control others. Do get other adults in your family on your side to talk up secret Santa as the most fun ever and make a big event of it, so it's more of a big deal to those who might initially see it as "cutting back." Do a party around it if you can.

If your relatives are not local, though, I think secret Santa is harder. In that case, can you be frank with them and say you'd like to limit kid gifts to, say, books only?....

One thing our local family did when I was young was secret Santa for everyone above a certain age, but for kids under that age, adults could give gifts to them all or as they pleased. So for instance, when I was, say, six, I would get three or four small gifts from several (by no means all) of my dad's relatives, while my parents, aunts, uncles, teen cousins etc. all did secret Santa and got one gift each and gave one gift each. It kind of dealt with the issue of aunts or grandparents saying, "But I really love giving gifts to the younger kids." Only you know at what age your family could place the cutoff.....[/quote]

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