How did you stop exchanging Christmas gifts with adults?

[JandJ]

Fortunately for us, family is not the issue. We have so few so we give them each a gift (usually $20-30 each). It's just DH's parents, my sister, my brother and SIL. My sister has 3 kids and we'd buy for them anyway.

For me it was giving up gift exchanges with my friends. Finally, two years ago I just flat-out told them, "how about we just exchange holiday cards" and they were SO relieved!! They didn't want to spend the money or the time searching for what ends up being a token gift either. It's been great and it carried over to birthdays too. I was hesitant to say anything to them but I'm so glad I did! I do still buy for a couple of friend's kids but as more and more of them have kids I'm cutting back to just the kids I actually see at Christmas.

I do still exchange with my very best friend and I'm happy to do that, but the problem with her is she wants us to exchange for our hubbies too. We never know what to get her hubby so I think this year I'm going to tell her that we need to drop the spouse gifts.

 

[stego]

several years back I'd had enough. Basically, it was a gift card exchange. My wife would receive several personal gifts, but between myself and my 2 brothers one gift card to another really kind of defeats the purpose. Here are 2 grown men who I have nothing in common with. One is married, lives 5 hours away, who shows up at mom's with the obligatory xmas appearance. We all have to bow down before the exalted golden child. I am not kidding. The other bro and his wife just had their 2nd daughter. Like my 1st bro, they live in a McMansion with 6 cars and 2 motorcycles. Their house is full of "stuff". What I have no control over is how my mom spends money on them. On my other post I stated I give my mom 10% of my income each month since she lives on limited income. Every now and then something breaks in her house (think washing machine) and we replace it for her. We explicity told her to stop giving us gifts for xmas and to PLEASE PLEASE give us a list of things she NEEDS. We set a limit for her to give to our son. She doesn't listen...last year she spent money on 2 things we don't need and they sit in a pile. In infuriates me to no end; but as I am older I will pass on this wisdom: mom is always right. There is a story and I will share it again: years ago I was a newly single dad to my 2 year old. I literally came out with the clothes on my back, but I got custody of my son. I was able to find work after being unemployed for several months, and a big part of my income went to daycare for my toddler son. I had only a little extra money, and of course spent that on my son for a few gifts for xmas. When I talked to my mom, she gave me some money to go out and buy a few gifts for exteneded family. Embarassed, I accepted the money and went out and purchased some personal gifts. Xmas day arrives and my son and I go over to my mom's. We come into the door with our gifts to them. I set them down, then my mom comes over and says to me quietly: why don't you come back later after we've done our gift exchange for dinner? Humiliated, I took my son and we went home to our tiny condo and watched pooh bear. That was the most painful lesson I had in regards to xmas and as each year passes I learn about the "courage to change"...

 

[DVCisME]

We do a grab bag for gifts then everyone only actually buys one gift each. However the way the economy is you should be fine just saying we can't afford to do gifts for adults anymore, lets just make the kids our priority.