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[quote=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![/quote]

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