Changing the Family Gift Giving Tradition

My husband's family does a "little family" Christmas that consists of us (2 adults/6 kids), his sister (1 adult), his mother and step-father and we exchange gifts between all of us. We usually do this on Christmas Eve. Then on either Christmas Day or Day After depending on everyone's schedule we do "big family" Christmas which is all the siblings for my hubby's mother and their families so there will be aroudn 50 ish people. For "big family" Christmas the adults (anyone who has graduated from high school) draw names and then everyone buys the children (high school age and below). Now granted their is no actual $ amount set but people buy according to what there budget will allow and it has never been an issue in the 7 years that I have been a part of this tradition. There is one family that some years participate and then other years opt out of participating if it is financially too tough.

Hope that helps.

I would just say something like "we have decided not to give Christmas gifts this year, so please don't get anything for us. We would still love to spend time as a family and see everyone".

Expect a few comments but they will get used to it eventually. I think it is sad that sometimes your kiddos don't get presents, that must be very disappointing for them. At least this way they will know what to expect ahead of time.

Christmas isn't just about gifts anyway.

everybody's name goes in the pot, regardless of age......& that's it for gift giving!

Well in my opinion the whole purpose behind giving a gift is not getting a gift in return, but for the joy in giving, if you are not getting Joy from giving, then do not do it. Make an excuse about the economy if you like...or hand out home made gifts from the children to the "adults" make cookies...I do not know where the arbitrary rules on gift giving came from ( it seems all our family's end up with them somehow!) Or wash your hands of it and tell hubby if he wants to spend $25 on a gift "to make it worthwhile" he can do his own gift shopping for his family...sorry if I come across as cranky, trust me I Totally understand, feeling burned out on Christmas that has become about getting instead of giving and all the commercialism that slaps us in our faces every time we enter a store.
Wishing you a Merry Christmas, it is never too late to start New traditions!
B.

We have the same situation going on also except everyone's name is in the drawing. After this year all of my husbands cousins are hoping to speak to their parents about changing this. The option that we are bringing to the table is we stop the gift giving except we will still get gifts for his grandparents, and do a better gift for the left right game we play each year. We usually do something like a box of cereal, but now we are thinking more like a board game or a good bottle of wine.

All of his cousins are in their 20's except for one who is still older single digit, and there are four great-grandchildren all under three years. They agree that Thanksgiving is so much better because there isn't the pressure of the gift giving, and we don't have to stop talking or playing games to watch everyone open gifts for three or more hours. We also think it's a great lesson for the great-grandchildren (two are ours) about the fun of giving a gift to their great-grandparents, but not expecting one in return.

We also have some friends are just exchanging board games this year. I think last year they did gift cards to restaurants. They might even do it as a white elephant type of giving.

It's so hard to be an in-law and trying to change the tradition, but sometimes they need someone from the outside looking in to figure something needs to change. You never know you might not be the only one thinking this way in the family. I was shocked how fast my husband's cousins jumped at the idea of stopping the gift exchange. Good luck to you.

We did the adult gift exchange in my extended family as well. In our family we included people as "kids" until age 21 or college graduation. We also have a large age spread--I'm the oldest cousin and the youngest is more than 30 years younger, very close to the age of my kids.

We too were buying gifts for everyone in the family and everyone was on a budget. My husband and I only have 1 child and all of my siblings (3) have more than 1. My husband hated buying for several and they only had to buy for 1. So about 4 years ago I put my foot down and said that we were going to start drawing names for gifts. 17 and younger draw names and we put a limit of $10 - $15 for the gift. 18 and older draw names and we usually do $10 - $15 gift card to a restaurant (lunch out!!). My mom wasn't impressed, but she was the one who could least afford to buy gifts for everyone. She still looks grumpy when we draw names but I don't feel as stressed out buying for everyone and the adults (18 and older) make silly faces for the pictures with their gift cards.

Wow, you have a large family. If your DH has 5 siblings, all with kids in their 20's, I'm guessing your kids receive plenty of gifts, especially if you all get together for a family Christmas celebration. Why worry about the 1 or 2 or even handful of people who don't give them gifts? If it stresses you out to buy for your kid's cousins, let DH handle that job.

We have a similar situation, but since it's my husband's family that does this, I have no say. I've talked to him about exchanging names, grab bag, etc, but he doesn't want to hear about changing the tradition (which now includes 19 kids!!). Talk to your husband about it. If he's determined that this is the best way, there's not much you can do about it except keep your family out of the gift exchange, if that's ok with him.

I'm wondering what kind of gift exchange (if any) you have with your side of the family. We do the same type of exchange with my family and my inlaws. We rotate names, (so if you have Sibling 1 one year, the next year you give to Sibling 2) with each sibling (and their spouse and kids if they have any) giving to another sibling's whole family. It can be one thing for the family, or a smaller gift for each member of that family. It's worked really well for us. But the kids are all still in the single digits age.

We sort of had the same problem as the adult gift exchange became everyone exchanging gift cards so we suggested we just get for the kids. The problem I have is that we have two children and my sister-in-law has five and my brother has four so buying for all the kids gets expensive. I don't want to be ungrateful but my mother-in-law lives only blocks away from my sister-in-law so she knows her kids much better than she knows my kids (we live about three hours away). This usually ends up with my sister-in-laws kids getting cool toys that they love and my kids either get clothes or toys that are totally too young for them and probably from the bargin bin. My children are younger and I don't think have noticed much. Last year I just put my foot down that we could not afford to get all 9 kids gifts and still afford to get our children gifts so we cut out gifts completely and just enjoyed spending a day together and we all agreed that all kids still had plenty of presents to open from mom, dad and santa. Some of my relatives still bought all the kids presents as they don't have their own kids and like doing so. I felt like Scrooge for suggesting it, but again this year we all agreed to not exchange gifts in this economy it seems that any extra money for gifts should be for each family unit.

Hello,
in my family I am the youngest of 5, all are married with kids. When we 1st started the drawing names, it was of the adults only & drew individual names. But, that turned out to be a bad way because I could always find something that would be great for the couple & not the individual that I or my hubby drew (cuz the ones we drew were not married to each other). So, we started drawing couple names. Now in both of those we were still buying for all the kids & for my mom & dad.

Well, as the families grew, we then went to drawing the family name. For instance: say we would draw my sister Ruths name, therefore we would buy for her, my BIL & their kids. The others we would buy a Christmas ortament.

Then after that we just went to buying for our own families, mom & dad, and just kept trading Christmas ortaments. You can find really neat looking & good deals on ortaments at the Cracker Barrel Restraunt, along with craft bizzares that are put on around town. If you liver anywhere near the Dallas metroplex, you can go to 1st Monday in Canton, that is a HUGE flea market with tons of craft booths.

The one way you can fix it where the same person doesn't get the same people each year, is to keep track of who drew who each year. That way when you draw for the next year you have a list & if someone draws who they had last year, they have to draw again until they have someone they didn't have.

Good luck & try to enjoy the holidays,
C.

We also have 6 kids in my family-and all but one is married (he's a senior in HS) and most of us have young kids (under age 5).

When we were little, our parents started the tradition of drawing and only buying for one sibling and then we would go to the store and pair up with a sibling we didn't get to go buy our $25 limit. For mom and dad, we traditionally got them a music box and ornament.

We did that up until 3 years ago when we decided it was time for a change. We were mostly all married without kids, in college and broke, so we changed it to a family exchange-we limit $30 for a family gift (something they can use as a family-kids and all-like a board game or movie or gift card) and we rotated after our 1st drawing so we are not buying for the same person all the time (plus we know who we are buying for each year ahead of time for those of us who shop early). We kept the music box and ornament tradition for mom and dad, but now a different family is responsible for picking out the music box each year and then we split the cost and just send that person our portion of the box.

This year, we did play around with just starting doing an exchange for the babies, but decided to keep with the family exchange but there are a few of us who will still buy for the babies until there are enough for their own cousin exchange! Good luck-best bet-get your husband on board with your idea and have him present it to his family-either at your family get-together or ahead of time by email!

Either have EVERYONE'S name in the exchange (each buying one gift only - with a spending limit so those without jobs could participate), or you and your immediate family could opt out all together.

Christmas is not about gifts anyway. It is about celebrating Christ our Savior's birth!!

In hubby's fam they always draw for everyone over 21. Under 21 and Aunts and uncles buy them all gifts (3 families and I think there are only 3 under 21 still). All the adults buy a $40 gift for the person they draw. They used to draw on thanksgiving. So LATE. When I was preggo a few years back and due the week of thanksgiving I convinced them to draw early so I could still participate. I was SO NOT worrying about shopping with a newborn. This year 1 fam said they were opting out and did not give a reason. But then we agreed to trim it down and do a couples' gift for $25 but w/o drawing names. There is only 1 single and she will buy something valued at $25 and receive something at $25, just like everyone else. So funny cuz the couple that initiated did it by text message! But I think it is reasonable. Oh and now that there is a 3rd generation, grandkids the grandkids draw names amongst each other.

We used to draw names in our family, but we switched to rotating instead because we kept getting the same people. So one year I buy for the oldest, the next year the 2nd oldest, and so on. As for the grandkids, they have their own exchange. We draw names and buy gifts (no more than $5) to exchange.
Last year we did something entirely different for the adults. We had a white elephant gift exchange. We all found something around the house we didn't want. Everyone started with a present and we read a story that had us pass around the unwrapped presents (to the left or right) until the end of the story when we unwrapped the gifts. It was great because #1 there was no pressure. #2 it was cheap #3 opposed to traditional white elephants, no one stole the gifts so there were no hurt feelings. The kids still did their own exchange, but in your situation it may be good to do a separate white elephant for them.
Try suggesting one of those to your husband and ask him to bring it up with his family. Good luck!

I would first ask you husband what he thinks about the gift giving and then you tell him your thoughts. I believe that it is not about what you get has a gift but the thought that counts. So what if they are regifting things, people do it all the time but you can't make that a big deal. If you don't like that then stop all together as a family. I would say that only the kids exchange gifts. Put all the kids say under the age of 18 in a hat and have each kid pick a name. Then you set a limit of what they spend. I think $25 is quite high especially when you have to be buying Christmas for your immediate family, but like I said it is not about the present it is about giving. I wouldn't be buying for everyone in the family that gets expensive. But it really is about what you and your husband would like to do and just do it. Good luck.