Gifts (NBR)

SweetHurricane · July 2011

This is usually the time of year I start buying XMas gifts for people (I like to be done *before* Thanksgiving). Well, a) money is super tight and b) we hardly see our families so we have no idea what they want/need. It got me wondering what everyone else does for gifting.

Who do you give gifts to? For what occasions?

Currently we gift: my parents (3 of them), his parents, his brother/SIL, and my sister/BIL. After XMas, BDays, and Mothers/Fathers Day, that's 9 people & 21 gifts a year. That's almost a thousand dollars a year. Plus H and I give gifts to each other, and now add in DD. It just seems a bit excessive. I was thinking about proposing the idea of a photo exchange (since we never see each other) for all occassions instead of gifts. Does this sound like a good idea?

jcole32444 · July 2011

We give a gift to eachother, usually more than one. Depends on what we get the other person. Our parants and all the children, cousins nieces nephews etc. Everyone else in our family has decided money is to tight to buy something for everyone. Depending on whether or not we draw names on my side of the family we will by grandparents gifts also.

RouensDream · July 2011

jcole32444:
We give a gift to eachother, usually more than one. Depends on what we get the other person. Our parants and all the children, cousins nieces nephews etc. Everyone else in our family has decided money is to tight to buy something for everyone. Depending on whether or not we draw names on my side of the family we will by grandparents gifts also.

We do something like this.

Extended family and close family get Christmas/Holiday photo card.

For my hubby's side of the family. (Big family) we draw names and buy that person a gift card or present. (On our name card we list 3 things we would like.) The kids get presents though.

My hubby and I always get each other one or two little gifts. I have a small family, so I usually just get one or two presents for my mom and brother.

This year, the grandmas/grandpas and great grandmas will get a calendar with 12 months of Finn. (January being a newborn pic, Feb. will be 1 month pic. etc..)

mommabear530 · July 2011

Money is tight for us too. Last year we decided on this system for Christmas- Each of our kids will get 3 gifts from us (signifying the 3 wise men), and 1 gift from "Santa". The Santa gift being something maybe expensive and cool, the other stuff more along the lines of new shoes, games, or something. And candy and little stuff for stockings. We had to do something because we realized how much we were getting for Joshua, and there's no way we can afford to double it for Simon!

Our parents and grandparents each get pictures of the kids and a tin of goodies I make. Fudge, cookies, home made candy, etc. I get each of the nephews something from the Dollar Store, nothing for our siblings except a card in the mail. And DH and I get each other a couple little things. Like $10 or so. And "Santa" gets us 1 cool gift for the both of us.

For birthdays I used to try to send cards with a few bucks to all my siblings and nephews, but I would always forget someone and felt bad. So now it's just a phone call.

Fergie+1 · July 2011

We're cheap... we do cards for pretty much everyone, and gifts only to kids and whomever is in the house on Christmas day. I get 2-3 gifts for H, only one of which is a big-ticket item, god knows how many I'll get Lucian... Wink

and then 2-3 small things for my nephew and neices that I send out a few weeks early. Last year H surprised me and actually bought me something nice; a digital photo frame. (Usually I buy myself a gift and label it from him because he hates buying gifts) And then, because we're weird, we get a few gifts for the cats, like new toy mice, treats, etc.

freeatlast2014 · July 2011

I don't even want to tell you the bad habits I have going on for the holidays. We have a HUGE family.

On my mom's side we do an adult grab bag with 1 gift $50 value (or gift card). We actually lowered it from $60 last year. Then we buy a gift for all of the kids (4 ages 14 - 22). The bad habit here is I buy for my cousins (the kids) which I should have never started but how do you break that? Then I give to my mom, stepdad and usually exchange with my sister and brother and sister's boyfriend (OMG, my brother has a girlfriend this year too yikes!). I also buy my special needs aunt.

THEN on my dad's side I buy for my dad, stepmom, and 3 siblings.

THEN on my husband's side we buy for his grandparents (3 of them), parents, aunt and uncle, sister, 2 cousins, sister's boyfriend, 2nd cousin and her 3 year old kid. And last year we got roped into buying for his aunt, 2 uncles, and cousin's 2 kids.

AND THEN we exchange pretty good gifts for each other, buy for the animals, and Santa knows it'll be a BIG year for JT!!

Oh yeah, I exchange with 1 friend too.

OMG, it's a small fortune. I need to think of something creative this year because I can't do this.

SweetHurricane · July 2011

MrsLynnyD:

On my mom's side we do an adult grab bag with 1 gift $50 value (or gift card). We actually lowered it from $60 last year. Then we buy a gift for all of the kids (4 ages 14 - 22). The bad habit here is I buy for my cousins (the kids) which I should have never started but how do you break that? Then I give to my mom, stepdad and usually exchange with my sister and brother and sister's boyfriend (OMG, my brother has a girlfriend this year too yikes!). I also buy my special needs aunt.

I used to do this. My dad is one of six kids. I was buying for: ALL of my aunts and uncles (that's 10 people), plus my cousins (that's another 8 people), my parents (4 people), sister and BIL, and then H's parents, grandmother, brother and SIL. That's 29 people. One year, I finally had enough and told my extended family that H and I would not be participating in the gift exchange from now on. I know people like to shop early (liek me), so I gave them months of warning so there would be no "but I already got you something". I am sooooooo happy I did it.

I don't mind doing XMas gifts, because XMas is awesome, but it's really friggen hard thinking of stuff to get for people 3 times a year that you never see. Even when we lived with my ILs, we still bought them stuff they already had because they'd say they wanted something and then go buy it for themselves right before a holiday/occasion.

freeatlast2014 · July 2011

SweetHurricane:
MrsLynnyD:

On my mom's side we do an adult grab bag with 1 gift $50 value (or gift card). We actually lowered it from $60 last year. Then we buy a gift for all of the kids (4 ages 14 - 22). The bad habit here is I buy for my cousins (the kids) which I should have never started but how do you break that? Then I give to my mom, stepdad and usually exchange with my sister and brother and sister's boyfriend (OMG, my brother has a girlfriend this year too yikes!). I also buy my special needs aunt.
I used to do this. My dad is one of six kids. I was buying for: ALL of my aunts and uncles (that's 10 people), plus my cousins (that's another 8 people), my parents (4 people), sister and BIL, and then H's parents, grandmother, brother and SIL. That's 29 people. One year, I finally had enough and told my extended family that H and I would not be participating in the gift exchange from now on. I know people like to shop early (liek me), so I gave them months of warning so there would be no "but I already got you something". I am sooooooo happy I did it.
I don't mind doing XMas gifts, because XMas is awesome, but it's really friggen hard thinking of stuff to get for people 3 times a year that you never see. Even when we lived with my ILs, we still bought them stuff they already had because they'd say they wanted something and then go buy it for themselves right before a holiday/occasion.

I HATE this! My H does it every year. And I too love Christmas...this one is going to be so much fun!!

I already started to talking to my H about how to cut down this list...we'll see how it goes.

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