Extended Family & Gifts

[Melaine]

What do you do with holidays and extended family gifts? Is there anything more original than drawing names or white elephant gifting? DDs have 11 cousins on DH's side (8 of which we will see) and 5 sets of Aunts and Uncles (3 of which we will see). In the past few years we have drawn names but I dislike doing that. Last year DH got an already opened board game and I got nothing. Yep, nothing. I know it was because his step-family tends toward the slightly disorganized, but still. I tend to put a lot of thought and effort into gifts and it's stressful for me to pick out really nice gifts for the adults. I enjoy buying for the kids on the other hand.....
SO what I would prefer would be that each family buy gifts for only the kids, but that would leave out the couple that doesn't have children yet.
Are there any other options? I thought about doing "stockings" and letting people just put small things into them.

WDYD?

[egoldber]

On my side we went to just giving gifts for the kids last year and that worked very well.

On DH's side, they still exchange gifts amongst all the immediate family, which frankly is getting expensive: MIL, FIL, SIL + BIL + 3 kids, SIL + new BIL and hopefully kids some day, plus the 4 of us. I think that's too many presents, but they are just ALL about the gift giving. It's a huge tradition in their family that they are not ready to give up.

But no way, no how would we exchange gift with cousins, etc. My mom was the oldest of 8! And even DH's smaller extended family would be a HUGE amount of gift giving.

I like the idea of drawing names personally, and I would try not to take things too personally. There are people who are VERY into gift giving and those for whom it is simply not that important and truly mean no harm by it. But IME that's a combo that has the potential to create a lot of hard feelings.

[TwinFoxes]

After years of buying for my DH's entire family, we finally are buying just for the kids. Thank goodness. We had one year of pulling names. But no one wanted to do my suggestion of putting a dollar limit. So, great, DH had me buy BIL a GPS, I got ugly $20 earrings from his wife with no gift receipt.

I would suggest getting something for the couple without kids...maybe some kind of present from all the kids?

One thing to do which can be fun, is to put a $5 limit. A good friend of mine had a work party where they drew names and had a $5 limit. I went to their party, and there were some amazing creative gifts. Admittedly he works at the SF Museum of Modern Art, but the gifts just had a lot of thought behind them. And a $5 limit might be especially popular these days...

[hbridge]

I have a very small family and DH's is larger. My family, we buy for immediate family, cousins, their child, ect (VERY small family). DH's gets more complicated...

We have never drawn names, but last year went to kids only with his parents (although DC did give them some homemade gifts) and scaled back for his siblings and their kids. My advice set whatever you are going to do NOW. For me, the holiday shopping is winding down, most of it's done with the exception of DH & DC. I always hated when Thanksgiving would come and they'd change the "rules". I'd send out an e-mail and ask for suggestions now and make a decision. I always preferred the less than $8 rule (or any dollar amount), that would always be my vote since it would eliminate any hurt feelings ect.

[egoldber]

I agree that a low $$ limit can make things fun and forces you to be creative. I thrive with that kind of "pressure", because I enjoy squeezing every last ounce of value out of that $5, $8 or $10. But I have been part of gift giving groups where people really rebelled at this.

[Melaine]

Yes, I REALLY dislike that an email will be sent out halfway inbetween Thanksgiving and Christmas setting the "rules" when I had passed up great gifts on clearance all year round. I started this thread because of Kmart toy clearance last night where I could've ended the entire issue by getting a great gift for each kid and just being done with it.
The $$$ amount thing is good, although it doesn't really help because I will find something truly awesome on clearance at 90% off and will receive a collection of items from the dollar store. I understand that I cannot expect everyone to be as enthusiastic and skilled a shopper as I am though :wink2:. And I know that you can't take it personally, but getting no gift made me sad. Although the year before I got a pricey gift certificate to a salon/spa which I appreciated the heck out of so it all evens out in the end. It really comes down to my being IN LOVE with Christmas and wanting everything to be perfect and beautiful and always being a little let down, but I know those are my issues!

[egoldber]

I will find something truly awesome on clearance at 90% off

I know you mean well and get very nice things for people with this shopping skill. But I will tell you that this makes me VERY uncomfortable both as a gift giver and as a recipient. I feel badly getting a very nice gift (even if it only cost $10 vs $100) when others are getting $10 gifts and I gave a $10 gift.

I think it's one thing to get a $20 gift for 50% off. But for someone in a group to get a gift worth $100 when everyone else is getting gifts worth $10ish makes things very uncomfortable.

[Melaine]

I know you mean well and get very nice things for people with this shopping skill. But I will tell you that this makes me VERY uncomfortable both as a gift giver and as a recipient. I feel badly getting a very nice gift (even if it only cost $10 vs $100) when others are getting $10 gifts and I gave a $10 gift.

I think it's one thing to get a $20 gift for 50% off. But for someone in a group to get a gift worth $100 when everyone else is getting gifts worth $10ish makes things very uncomfortable.

I haven't actually done this with a monetary limit set (we've never had one in our family). I'm talking about drawing names with no dollar limit and some of DH's family STILL buys stuff from the dollar store. I at least buy nicer gifts, while still spending less money. But I think this is a good point that there needs to be a dollar limit so I will quite out-buying the majority of the family.

[AJP]

We do gifts for immediate family only. Now that my sister, brother & I all have kids, we only buy for them and not us adults. I have mom, dad, mil, fil, bil and 4 kids to buy for this year. Also have a few Godchildren & my best friend's kids. Oh, and DH lol.
We have a huge extended family on my moms side, but we don't see everyone over the holidays now that everyone is married with their own families. Every year the 1st cousins have a huge Christmas party and the "girls" pick names for a gift. We range in age from 26-45. The party was started about 12 years ago b/c we don't all get to see eachother, but the secret santa thing was started way back b/c there were so many of us and we couldn't do gifts for all. With spouses & SO's we are about 40 people! Only us girls take part in the secret santa.
Most of us have kids now and we also have a cousin's "kids" party and do the same with picking the names. We take turns hosting each year. It's nice to do the gift thing for the kids, but I'm really kind of over it for us. I'd rather keep the traditions of the parties so we can get together. This works well for us since we only get to see everyone together a few times a year. Some cousins we see more at various times of the year.
We set a price range for the gifts and if someone isn't showing up last minute, the hostess has always taken care of that gift. We went with a price "range" b/c that was more accomodating than just saying spend 30,40, 50 etc. I think people feel more comfortable with that.
When I was younger it never bothered me that we'd be at my aunts for Christmas and one cousin might get a gift from another who happened to be her Godmother etc. There wasn't a whole lot of gift exchanging done that day anyways...most was done in advance and gifts opened at home Christmas morning.

[MoJo]

I know you mean well and get very nice things for people with this shopping skill. But I will tell you that this makes me VERY uncomfortable both as a gift giver and as a recipient. I feel badly getting a very nice gift (even if it only cost $10 vs $100) when others are getting $10 gifts and I gave a $10 gift.

I think it's one thing to get a $20 gift for 50% off. But for someone in a group to get a gift worth $100 when everyone else is getting gifts worth $10ish makes things very uncomfortable.

Beth, and anyone else who feels this way:

I'm the super shopper in my family. I'm wondering if you'd feel that way if EVERYONE in the group gets a gift in the 75-90% off range.

Because DH and I both shop, and we shop all year, by the time Christmas comes, we do usually have something for each family member bought at that level of discount. So WE are the only ones left getting the less valuable gifts. And because I love giving gifts so much (and because we certainly use our shopping skills for ourselves too), I don't mind. My mom is the only one who complains that we're spending our money and that she can't afford to do the same. I've gone back to leaving price tags on just so she can see I really only paid $5 for the cashmere sweater I bought in the spring for her and have been saving for Christmas. (It also helps that she wears a small, and so stuff in her size is often marked down the most.)

Maybe I need to explain that there is not and will never be any name drawing on either side of the family. We buy something for everyone: our parents, our siblings, their spouses and their kids. In our case, that's 14 people, not including the three of us. And each of them will get something for us, even though on DH's side that's usually a gift card for a dinner at Applebee's or something similar, to be shared by the family.

I actually preferred giving gifts at random times, so the comparisons of value weren't as obvious. But my mother has requested that I NOT give gifts except for her birthday, Mother's Day and Christmas.

But maybe I should look at it the opposite way: if DH's parents are going to give us a $100 Walmart gift card, as long as we give a gift of a similar value, it doesn't matter whether we actually spent $10 or $20 on it.

What do you think?

[egoldber]

My mom is the only one who complains that we're spending our money and that she can't afford to do the same.

My mother cannot afford to buy gifts. Which is why we went to only doing things for kids. She also does not have the means (transportation, internet savvy) to bargain shop. I know it makes her uncomfortable to receive an expensive gift when she cannot reciprocate in kind. I used to think I was being nice giving her a nicer gift than she could afford to give me, and in retrospect I realized that I was only making her uncomfortable.

When there are inequities in income in families, gift giving can get very tricky.


I'm wondering if you'd feel that way if EVERYONE in the group gets a gift in the 75-90% off range.

Even if you give everyone a gift worth $100 that only cost you $10 (using these numbers as examples) it would still make many people in my family very uncomfortable. If I give you dishtowels worth $10 and you give me a cashmere sweater worth $100, it makes me feel pretty crappy about what I just gave you. IMO it's better to go with the family comfort level of gift giving rather than trying to get the very best deal.

Obviously JMO.

[SnuggleBuggles]

We used to buy gifts for aunts, uncles and cousins but in the past 2 years we just stopped. We just sent a nice card and called it a day. It seems to have gone over fine because last year they didn't send us a gift either (though they sent presents to the boys). I also worked out with my brother that we would only buy for the kids.

Btw, I agree with Beth's cashmere sweater/ dish towel analogy. I'd feel really crappy if i had given the dish towels and received a cashmere sweater. I think the presents should be on par with each other if there is a budget.

Beth