We stopped buying adults presents for the most part. It's a ridiculous process, drumming up regular, thoughtful gifts for people who have enough money to buy what they need.

I try to write thoughtful cards about what great parents they were, then maybe take them out to dinner.

In our family, we only do birthday presents up to age 21. After that, you only get presents if someone finds something particular that makes a good gift for the individual in question.

DH and I got together when we were 21 and had no jobs/money yet. I tried really, really hard to not give expensive gifts then or now. We can afford it now, but why exactly do well off parents who can buy themselves whatever they want need gifts? We stick to a $50 budget and wish they'd reciprocate. DH and I aren't big into gifts either and would prefer more quality time or activities.

Gifts become like a nuclear arms race with spending increasing yearly.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We don't send gifts for parent or sibling birthdays. We only send gifts for nieces and nephews (and there are only a total of 3 of these).

]

This is the way in my family but not in my husband's. The gift thing on his side is EXHAUSTING. I have suggested making a change (how about an annual family donation to a charity?) and it's met with stony silence. They like to think they are a close family but it's a joke. They don't talk, aren't honest, don't listen, but heaven forbid you don't get that shitty gift from QVC every xmas. Gah.

I guess this rant serves to say, PP, that if the family is stuck on this, it's often not worth trying to change.

Then why do you do it? Tell your DH to buy presents for his own family members.

Oh, I totally do. His siblings and siblings' spouses (who don't plan well or communicate well) try to do group gifts, and chaos ensues. Sometimes after watching them flounder for a few days I throw them a bone by suggesting something appropriate/obvious (but that they could never have come up with in a million years on their own), and then step back for the rest of the process.

I guess I tried to float the idea of doing away with the gifts, even though it's not MY family, because who wants to spend a week floundering every time someone has a birthday? Also, who wants to keep seeing your poor, aging parents spend money they don't have on shit from QVC? It seemed altruistic to at least mention the possibility of nixing it. But no. Whatevs.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We don't send gifts for parent or sibling birthdays. We only send gifts for nieces and nephews (and there are only a total of 3 of these).

]

This is the way in my family but not in my husband's. The gift thing on his side is EXHAUSTING. I have suggested making a change (how about an annual family donation to a charity?) and it's met with stony silence. They like to think they are a close family but it's a joke. They don't talk, aren't honest, don't listen, but heaven forbid you don't get that shitty gift from QVC every xmas. Gah.

I guess this rant serves to say, PP, that if the family is stuck on this, it's often not worth trying to change.

Husband's family = husband's task. Either he keeps up his family traditions, or they don't happen. Easy.

As for the OP: Nothing wrong with flowers! If they like getting flowers, well, there you go!

I pushed the task of gifts for my husband's parents back on to him after the Mother's Day where he was working like a dog so when I was picking out cards for the women in my family, I picked up a card for MIL or else she wasn't going to get one at all. She actually called to complain about the card because it wasn't "funny." I wasn't aware that Mother's Day called for humorous cards.

That said, I hate exchanging gifts among adults. Thankfully in recent years my ILs have joined multiple book clubs and they put all the books on their Amazon lists, so we just buy them some of those. At one point my H suggested that we stop exchanging between adults (after the 5th set of various Bible stories on CD arrived for him) and that went over like a lead balloon.

I let the kids choose birthday gifts. None of the grandparents need anything. Well, MIL is on a limited income but she much prefers a sentimental gift over a gift card. I usually ask the spouse if they want/need anything, and they always say just a call to wish them a happy birthday.

My dad's birthday is soon, so we're having a shutterfly candle made with a pic of him when he was little riding his horse. The kids think it's the most awesome invention ever. My dad is the most sentimental person I've ever met, so I figure it's a good mushy gift. When people see it he can a) gush over his grandkids who picked out a cool gift and b) talk about his horse and reminisce.

For Christmas we try to do bigger gifts, but honestly the most well received gifts have always been the sentimental ones, regardless of price. Like my mom cross stitches, and DD learned to as well. She's making my mom an ornament for Xmas. She picked an angel design to stitch, and it's pretty hideous. Not my mom's style at all. But I know that ornament is going to be the centerpiece of the tree forevermore. I could probably let that be the only gift and mom would be happy as a clam.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We don't send gifts for parent or sibling birthdays. We only send gifts for nieces and nephews (and there are only a total of 3 of these).

]

This is the way in my family but not in my husband's. The gift thing on his side is EXHAUSTING. I have suggested making a change (how about an annual family donation to a charity?) and it's met with stony silence. They like to think they are a close family but it's a joke. They don't talk, aren't honest, don't listen, but heaven forbid you don't get that shitty gift from QVC every xmas. Gah.

I guess this rant serves to say, PP, that if the family is stuck on this, it's often not worth trying to change.

Then why do you do it? Tell your DH to buy presents for his own family members.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:In our house, I generally get tasked with remembering/picking gifts for all family members (siblings on both sides, nieces/nephews, parents, etc). We send flowers on Mother's Day/something on Father's Day, and do bigger gifts for parents at Christmas, but I'm struggling with parent birthdays. It's incredibly hard to think of anything that either set of parents wants; flowers or a gift basket of some kind are easy but seem impersonal. How many people still send gifts to their parents for birthdays? Is it just the thought that counts, and I should just send flowers/something similar and stop stressing about it?

If you have kids, framed photos of them or a photo book from Shutterfly or Snapfish. Repeat as necessary.

Yeah, we do pics of the kids or a book we know they'd be interested in reading. Sometimes a restaurant gift card or movie tickets.

Anonymous wrote:In our house, I generally get tasked with remembering/picking gifts for all family members (siblings on both sides, nieces/nephews, parents, etc). We send flowers on Mother's Day/something on Father's Day, and do bigger gifts for parents at Christmas, but I'm struggling with parent birthdays. It's incredibly hard to think of anything that either set of parents wants; flowers or a gift basket of some kind are easy but seem impersonal. How many people still send gifts to their parents for birthdays? Is it just the thought that counts, and I should just send flowers/something similar and stop stressing about it?

If you have kids, framed photos of them or a photo book from Shutterfly or Snapfish. Repeat as necessary.

I struggle with this constantly. It's SO hard to do parents gifts. With my inlaws we all do amazon wishlists. The things we put on there are a wide assortment of things we'd love and it doesn't really ruin the surprise.

I've noticed that both sets of my grandparents give my parents cash and my parents give us cash. I would like to just write a check too. It seems the easiest. I'm sure it would go over like a lead balloon though.

Anonymous wrote:We don't send gifts for parent or sibling birthdays. We only send gifts for nieces and nephews (and there are only a total of 3 of these).

]

This is the way in my family but not in my husband's. The gift thing on his side is EXHAUSTING. I have suggested making a change (how about an annual family donation to a charity?) and it's met with stony silence. They like to think they are a close family but it's a joke. They don't talk, aren't honest, don't listen, but heaven forbid you don't get that shitty gift from QVC every xmas. Gah.

I guess this rant serves to say, PP, that if the family is stuck on this, it's often not worth trying to change.

We don't send gifts for parent or sibling birthdays. We only send gifts for nieces and nephews (and there are only a total of 3 of these).

Cash is the gift that keeps on giving!

In our house, I generally get tasked with remembering/picking gifts for all family members (siblings on both sides, nieces/nephews, parents, etc). We send flowers on Mother's Day/something on Father's Day, and do bigger gifts for parents at Christmas, but I'm struggling with parent birthdays. It's incredibly hard to think of anything that either set of parents wants; flowers or a gift basket of some kind are easy but seem impersonal. How many people still send gifts to their parents for birthdays? Is it just the thought that counts, and I should just send flowers/something similar and stop stressing about it?