Do you give Christmas gifts to everyone in your extended family?

[Meriweather]

Just our children and their families

 

[leebee]

DH and I exchange gifts (but often predictable gifts: I'll give him this year's haul of dress shirts/ties, khakis, socks and underwear, and he'll give me the 3 hardcover books I like, makeup, scented lotion I love but won't spend the money on). I try to find a knick-knack toy for him, and I also give him chocolate covered cherries and some nice chocolates. We give to DD/SIL, one of my sisters, and her 2 daughters, as they are the only family members we really see regularly. Neither DH nor I have parents anymore. Sometimes I get something for my brother, occasionally for my sister/BIL who live in NOLA, but that tends to be something like homemade pasta, fudge, or jam. More like a "it's the thought that counts" kind of thing. DH is one of 7 kids, all of whom are married with kids... and those kids have kids now SO we don't exchange there at all.

 

[NAB]

Christmas is so hard to buy for people that don’t need anything. That includes my husband....lol I’m hard for him too. So we really don’t get much for each other. Some candy, he got some tool thing while shopping while I got a purse on Black Friday. We will open them when the kids open theirs...surprise...lol

Last year my husband family asked to not exchange , they couldn’t afford it anymore. It was actually a relief never know what to get them either.

I do exchange with one sister and her family, daughters are Godchildren of our. My other siblings used to draw names and decided not to do that anymore a few years ago.

I bake Christmas cookies for all 5 siblings and there families. It has become a tradition so they are always asking if I started baking yet...lol 10 different types . It’s a lot of cookies.

 

[ronandannette]

Our list is pretty small now. All of our parents are gone and DH and his siblings are not close; even though we all live within 20 miles of one another, we won't see either of them over the holidays. All the nieces and nephews on his side are adults and we long ago stopped buying for them.

We buy gifts for our DS and send money to the DD's. We used to have gifts shipped to the grandkids but last year started giving cash to them too; the kids are just now at an age where they appreciate the bucks more than a gift. We buy for each other although in leaner years the gifts are basically tokens. We buy for my siblings if we happen to be spending Christmas day with them (this year I think we are). I have three adult nieces that I have very close relationships with and I buy for them. There are also one set of friends we exchange with and a couple of older widows we know that we always get a little something for.

 

[sasywtch]

We use to do gifts for everyone until my parents passed. Now myself and 3 siblings have separate Christmas at our own homes (except one sister I don't get along with but my DIL loves her so her, her son, his wife, stepdaughter and daughter come to ours).
I have four adult children and 3 grandkids. We bu y only for the grandkids and above nephews stepdaughter and daughter. My adult kids don't buy me gifts any longer as one usually takes me shopping early and she gets me something and my son 's wife usually does something crafty
last year we did the white elephant exchange which I hope they do this year. I think it was $25 max.
I don't buy for my 1son and 2 daughter as they have spouses and they buy everything they ever want and more. My 2 son I may get him an Amazon gc he has a gf and they exchange a gift but she's on the practical side) and I will buy for 1 daughter that is paralyzed I also buy See's candy for dd 4caregivers

 

[indimom]

On DH's side, no. We started with gifts for the kids, but one brother quit, then we quit, and finally the last sibling quit.
On My side, we have a gift exchange. We also started stuffing stockings when the kids were little, but we only do that until they graduate (basically each family brings a small inexpensive gift or gift card for each child and we fill a stocking with the items - the goal is to keep it as cheap as possible so things like $5 gift cards or fuzzy socks or nail polish or a deck of cards or whatever.) The stocking stuffer gifts have been really unique and creative over the years and a lot of fun.

 

[soccerdad72]

We switched over to doing a gift exchange a few years ago - each member of the family (my parents, siblings and niece/nephews) each draw a name. $50 limit.

My parents still buy for all the the grandchildren (7 in all), but that's their decision.

 

[SC Minnie]

We pretty much just buy for DD. My parents don't want more 'stuff' so I do things for them throughout the year that are for gift giving occasions - I pay for Mom's cell phone and we pay to have my Dad's yard taken care of all summer. My brother and I agreed to stop the gift giving about 15 years ago. We don't see each other at the holidays anyway-- he lives in another state. We stopped gifting to the niece and nephews years ago- they are all 25 and over.

DH parents are deceased. DH's family does a gift exchange where everyone is given a name to buy for. He asked to stop being on the list a few years ago. It's gotten to just be a gift card exchange.

 

[marthachick]

We don’t do extended family. On my dad’s side alone just aunts, uncles and first cousins & their spouses number over 50. Mom’s side isn’t quite as large but close.

 

[Julie's Haircut]

Extended family used to exchange gifts up until the early 80's when all the grandparents had died. Kids usually got gifts from aunts/uncles until they were about age 20.

I used to exchange gifts with my brother, sister in law, and her parents until about 2004 until we all decided to stop it.

 

[DuskKodesh]

Hubs lost his father early on and I lost mine when I was twenty-four so we buy for the moms, my sister, my ex brother in law (Who is still and will always be family), and my friends and girlfriend. Most gifts are just little things but there's no way I could buy for all my aunts uncles and nieces. I had VERY prolific grandparents.

Also have to get each neighbor on each side of my house a nice box of chocolates and I always get a gift card for our mail carrier.

 

[CdnCarrie]

We give to our parents, our children and my nieces and nephews.
Husband's side they cut off kids at age 18.

I've never given to aunts or uncles. They live in other provinces and have big familes of their own. I haven't received gifts from aunts/uncles since I was about 10. Our family is too large for that.

 

[Praying Colonel]

On my side of the family my parents have passed. All of us siblings, spouses and our adult children do a name draw with a max gift cost of $25. My great nephew who's only 5 months old, we're going to buy for him.

On DW's side of the family we buy for her mother. DW's siblings, spouses and our adult children--well, everybody buys for everybody and there's no spending ceiling because they don't want to plan it. So it's kind of Christmas Thunderdome. We also buy for our great niece, who's about 9 months old.

 

[SaintsManiac]

My side of the family stopped doing a huge gift exchange last year. We now only buy for the kids.

We do exchange on my husband's side. We got everyone a little gift from Disney this year since we were just there. His family is small and my daughter is the only child, so it's not usually a huge deal.

 

[gtpoohbear]

On my side of the family, we only buy for the kids, so 4 nieces/nephews for us. (Although, 2 of them are technically adults now, but we'll still get them something!) My parents and siblings are always struggling for money, so a few years ago we all agreed that the adults would not exchange gifts.

On DH's side, we do still buy something for his mom and sister (as well as her kids). We used to buy presents for all of his aunts and uncles too, because they always send us something. But a few years ago, we decided it was just silly and stopped. We were hoping they would get the hint and stop sending us stuff too, but no luck so far. Pretty sure his sister doesn't buy them anything either, so I don't feel bad.

 

[jaybirdsmommy]

Not a lot of extended family here, it's just my mother, brother, and niece on my side. On DH's side, there are 2 sisters and 1 brother in law, no kids.

On my side I only buy for my mother. My brother isn't the gifting type so we've never really exchanged gifts for any occasion.

On DH's side, we buy for all of them. It's a pain, we are all adults, no one needs anything, their lists are ridiculous and they have a habit of giving us completely useless junk. They won't agree to stop and the times I've suggested it they've gotten pretty ugly about it. There have been several years we have used our timeshare points to take them on vacation with us and I've suggested that be their Christmas present (hello, an entire week at the beach?!?!?!). Nope, not happening.

 

[shh]

Send them all one of these

https://imgur.com/dK2cXUu

Right? Every year, I promise myself I will finally proclaim "no more" and every single year I back down (wimp that I am.) They're just really good, decent people other than this weirdness - and it's not MY family tradition - it's theirs. So I just don't feel comfortable continuing to bring it up.

I really don't know why gifts are so important to them. I guess it's just the way they express love and family.

My DH doesn't like it either - all this gift giving to non-related people we barely know through years of blended families. His suggestion is just to cut the amount of spend and buy fun little token gifts vs the bigger value gifts and gift cards we've been giving. When they spend a lot more on us, oh well - maybe they'll learn for next year. (But that's him - I'd feel bad.)

I guarantee NONE of them even remember what anyone else got them last year...everyone just opens their pile of stuff at once and the majority is just trading gift cards anyway. Seems so crazy

I really do love the holidays otherwise!

 

[shh]

On DH's side, we buy for all of them. It's a pain, we are all adults, no one needs anything, their lists are ridiculous and they have a habit of giving us completely useless junk. They won't agree to stop and the times I've suggested it they've gotten pretty ugly about it. There have been several years we have used our timeshare points to take them on vacation with us and I've suggested that be their Christmas present (hello, an entire week at the beach?!?!?!). Nope, not happening.

I am SO glad I'm not all alone in this leaky boat lol

 

[loves to dive]

Nope, my honey gives money to his 2 nieces and nephew, I give one large gift to my adult son and that's it. We used to give gifts to parents/ siblings/ and my nieces but it got too way out of hand. My parents are both dead now. Honey's parents used to give us money and we would give them money and I finally said this is just silly. We told all family members not to give us anything, we are truly one of those couples that has anything we need, so we told them if they just felt they must, to give money to a charity in our names. All my nieces are grown now and scattered. Honey and I don't exchange gifts unless we buy something silly, again we just have anything we need already. Last year Honey gave me practical stuff we were going to need for our RV we were buying in Jan, doesn't every woman want a sewer hose? I give my son one expensive gift, usually what he needs but can't afford. One year it was a new computer, this year it will be getting new brakes/drums for his car.

 

[dhardawa]

I buy for my kids and a small, $25 each gift for my niece and two nephews. Then, we go as a family and take a weekend trip somewhere later in the year in place of gifts.