canceling adult Christmas gift giving

[pinkytoe]

I am considering having a talk with DD about making a joint agreement not to give gifts to each other at Christmas. It is not a financial burden but always feels forced. We spent years exchanging gifts with DH's parents who had everything possible and no interests or hobbies. Every year it was like pulling our hair out to come up with gifts and every year they sent us a check for $500. This went on until just a few years ago. Would love to keep doing gifts for grand-kids but with DD approaching 40 it seems like we could make life easier for all of us if we didn't feel pressured to exchange gifts with the adults in the family. Thoughts?

[JaneV2.0]

I would be very happy to exchange a few consumables or similar items/experiences, personally. Cookies, steaks or sea foods, exotic sauces, Who Gives a Crap subscriptions, charitable donations ( I liked UNICEF/MSNBC's K.I.N.D. scholarship fund this year). Maybe a new puzzle or book of crosswords. Not a lot of gifts, and nothing the recipient would have to deal with long-term.

[Tradd]

Go ahead. If you feel the need to give something to the adult kids it could be food or something small like an ornament.

[Simplemind]

Our entire family stopped gifting several years ago. It had become a gift card exchange and then we realized we were recycling gift cards because we never used them. What we do now is a holiday themed potluck/game night. We all come with holiday favorites from through the years. We listen to seasonal music and play cards and boardgames and have great conversations. We don't do it on the actual holiday, we do it on a day when nobody has any other obligations. Everybody loves it and nobody misses the gifts. Easy peasy, no stress, no running around to more than one place for the holiday.

[jp1]

I stopped giving gifts a number of years ago and at the time let everyone I had been giving them to that I would be donating the money to various charities and that if they wanted to give me anything I would most appreciate them picking one of the charities and donating to it. I've never regretted that decision. I still will get something for SO if there is something specific that I know he wants, but that's it. This year he wants an Occulus virtual reality thing. I will be ordering it this weekend so that it arrives monday or tuesday while he's at work.

[ToomuchStuff]

Gave up adult gifting quite a few years ago, a lot less stress. I do miss card games and such, but too much head in electronic devices, because there were too many disagreements about what to play.

[catherine]

We are having that discussion right now. I have a DDIL who guns for it politely every year. We are historically pretty ridiculous gift-givers, and as you say, PT, it's expensive and stressful. So my son actually sent around an email stating, "Why?' With everyone grown up (except for the grands), no one will be bent out of shape if we reconstruct our tradition. DH and I came up with a secret Santa plan, so that we would only have to give one gift outside of gifts for grandkids and spouses. I do buy my brothers a gift, but it's always a VT gift box with local consumables, so it's not stressful. DS recommended that if we really are compelled to do something, we could all contribute the. money we'd normally spend to a family vacation fund to be used in the summer.

I think it's great. It will be a transition for sure. I'm meeting with some resistance, but I think that most would be glad to be able reclaim time from not having to run around buying stuff and obsessing about buying the "right" thing for 13 people. And we'll all appreciate the savings to our budget.

[iris lilies]

We are having that discussion right now. I have a DDIL who guns for it politely every year. We are historically pretty ridiculous gift-givers, and as you say, PT, it's expensive and stressful. So my son actually sent around an email stating, "Why?' With everyone grown up (except for the grands), no one will be bent out of shape if we reconstruct our tradition. DH and I came up with a secret Santa plan, so that we would only have to give one gift outside of gifts for grandkids and spouses. I do buy my brothers a gift, but it's always a VT gift box with local consumables, so it's not stressful. DS recommended that if we really are compelled to do something, we could all contribute the. money we'd normally spend to a family vacation fund to be used in the summer.

I think it's great. It will be a transition for sure. I'm meeting with some resistance, but I think that most would be glad to be able reclaim time from not having to run around buying stuff and obsessing about buying the "right" thing for 13 people. And we'll all appreciate the savings to our budget.

uggh! 13 things coming into my home, nooooooo!!!

In your family I would be the daughter in law. Give up the gifting! When DH’s family of 5 siblings and parents cut down on the gifting, they still felt compelled to give their parents a gift, one from all of them. Then, their parents gave us checks of a couple hundred each.

[rosarugosa]

We were able to get away from adult gift-giving for a few years, but last year DSis gave us gifts, prefaced with "Please don't be mad, but I just had to with Covid going on and everything... " Mmm OK, fine, I mean I'm not going to verbally beat up on you for using us as an outlet for your retail therapy if that is what you felt you had to do. I'm not quite as mean as all that. As an aside, I will mention here in confidence that she gave us things we did not want, did not particularly like and do not use. So how is this a good thing for her, us, or the planet?
I find the whole stressful idea of buying a thoughtful gift for everyone I know to show them I care about them an insane one. I mean, if they don't know that I care about them, I'm doing something seriously wrong that a Black Friday shopping spree will not rectify. "Here, I bought you something you may not want or need with money that could have better been used elsewhere and in return you will give me something I very likely do not want or need with money that also could have been put to better use." Then we can donate all the unwanted stuff to a charity that would have preferred the cash. We could have spent the time wasted on shopping doing something meaningful instead like taking nature walks or drinking eggnog!
I have a dear friend/former boss whose late mother had Alzheimer's, and she told me that she and her sister would buy gifts for each other, but also for each other from their mother. This was over 20 years ago, but even then I was struck by how crazy this was.
People complain about the stress of the shopping, the wrapping, etc. and it's all self-inflicted BS as far as I'm concerned. Life has enough unavoidable stressors; we don't need to go out of our way to create more for ourselves. That being said, I will exchange token gifts with my sister this year if that is important to her, because it isn't all about me.

[iris lilies]

I am considering having a talk with DD about making a joint agreement not to give gifts to each other at Christmas. It is not a financial burden but always feels forced. We spent years exchanging gifts with DH's parents who had everything possible and no interests or hobbies. Every year it was like pulling our hair out to come up with gifts and every year they sent us a check for $500. This went on until just a few years ago. Would love to keep doing gifts for grand-kids but with DD approaching 40 it seems like we could make life easier for all of us if we didn't feel pressured to exchange gifts with the adults in the family. Thoughts?

This plan seems late in the game, we are nearly half way through n.December. Sure you can talk about it for this year but it has more meaning for next year