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[quote=Anonymous]DH and I have started hosting Thanksgiving for his extended family now that MIL is too old to handle the task alone.  It's about 12 people total, including us.

It's a fair amount of work, but I don't mind doing it, I love to cook and this year especially, family pitched in with room set up, doing dishes and MIL did a bunch of cooking.  I'm also a much more practiced hostess than the rest of the family (I come from a family of restauranteurs) and we have a big house that can accommodate everyone, whereas other family members would have a much harder time hosting, would hate hosting, or both.   A good time was had by all, and we didn't have to deal with the travel (2-6 hrs by car for the rest of the family) and disruption to our kid as everyone else.

DH was a bit stressed last year because there was a lot of cleanup but this year was great.  He even got me a card this year thanking me for planning meals/activities that made life fun and he spent much of Thanksgiving relaxing, catching up with his family and so on.

Yet this year DH's family seems overly thankful for everything as if we did some kind of angelic favor.  They have sent long thank yous and small gifts which are all of course appreciated and I appreciate the gesture which makes me more than happy to host again next year, and I'm looking forward to it.  But last week we got a huge gift certificate thank you ($500) from the family, which is really too much, especially because that is a fair amount of money to most of them.  MIL has some money but others have kids and make 5 figures in cities with high-ish cost of living.  This is not peanuts to them.  The gift certificate is totally thoughtful, but really too much and I don't know what to do.  I am not being ungracious, but I don't want them to think they need to do this on a regular basis -- on top of everything DH and I like the family.  They can be a pain in little ways, but we both very much enjoy having them, the kids have a blast and they're totally considerate guests.

What do we do to explain we don't need this kind of gift without seeming rude? And can we return it?  My mom suggested buying them gifts with it, but it's from a high end cooking store that I'm not sure many of them would want much from.

I realize I could have worse problems, but they've been so wonderful, I'd like to avoid looking like a jerk here. Thanks for any advice.
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