Reply to How do I stop the gifting insanity at the holidays?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]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.[/quote]

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.[/quote]

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