I’m looking for some advice or ideas. I have a relatively small extended family on both my side and my husband’s side. We each have just one sibling with children. When each side of our family gets together for Christmas, there are a total of 5 cousins, all in their 20s.
I’ve struggled with gift exchanges.
I’m tired of buying gifts for everyone, which we do on my DHs side of the family. The “kids” are all adults, and I feel like it’s gone on long enough. We can’t really draw names for cousins as their are too few (someone would have to have a sibling’s name), and I don’ see putting the aunts, uncles and cousins all in the same “draw names” group (but maybe I should?).
With my brother and his family, we usually do the $20 swap/steal gift exchange with the whole group. It is very challenging to find anything meaningful that everyone (60 year old aunt and 22 year old young man) will like. We all end up with a bunch of gag gifts (although that’s not the intent) and I always want to just re-gift them the following year.
Any creative suggestions for small extended family? I’d seriously like to forget the whole gift aspect of these family get-togethers, but so far that isn’t an option.
We have 6 young adults in my extended family, plus my siblings with their spouse and my mother. It’s around 15+ depending on who shows up. We do a secret santa gift plus a white elephant (steal) gift. Secret santa is around $100-120 and white elephant is $50. We agreed we would spend a bit more money and get something someone could use/keep. We stopped giving the young adults gifts once they turned 18. Spending $170 is a good deal for me. I usually like to get an interesting gadget for the grab bag and something more personal as a secret santa.
We do it. Last year I restricted immediate relatives, but really we’re all immediate so i let it go this year. If I get my own kid (I haven’t yet), then they get whatever I am giving them (we do books and cozy clothing) plus the secret santa gift.
My sister got her husband this year and asked me to switch, so I did. No biggie.
With my dh’s family, the kids each choose via Elfster another kid to fill a stocking ($35 budget). They are now all young adults and they really enjoy this. Each adult also chooses another adult to fill a stocking. In addition, each adult chooses a child for which to purchase a gift ($65 budget). So each adult gets one stocking to open and each child gets a stocking plus a gift to open. It sounds confusing, but it has worked well since we were all purchasing for each other.
For my family, we each bring a “gag” gift and a “good” gift (usually $25 gift cards). We pick numbers and do a Yankee Swap to pick the gifts. This is a ton of fun; we all love it and have been doing it for years.
Pick a theme that is family oriented. Our family Secret Santa is $25 and the theme is always “food” because, well, we all love food, cooking, etc. Never run out of ideas - whether it’s for the 22 year old new college grad or us oldsters!
We also stopped giving individual gifts to the cousins once they graduated high school. And we also don’t give Christmas gifts to our siblings. We all just have too much “stuff” anyway.
A number of years ago, we started giving a charitable donation in honor of our family. We chose a local charity that buys winter coats for children who need them. Our siblings caught on, and make donations to local charities in their area.
Our limit is $10. Invariably, I buy some very soft, plush blankets/throws. They’re always stolen until the limit of 3 steals is reached, some food (like a bag of ghiradeli’s chocolate squares), also stolen. Sometimes buy nice handcreams. Last year, got Costco clearance deluxe scrabble game that was stolen. Have bought nice knife set that was on sale that was stolen.
Thus year, may give a day pass for 4 to local museum. Water bottles—one that is clear but BPA free and two nice water bottles that are insulated and metal. May also give 2 passes to a local park which otherwise charges admission.
When it’s more money, it’s more challenging because I don’t mind buying a few $10 gifts and getting in return an item none of us are fond of. On the other hand, if I’m buying bigger gifts, stakes are higher and I’d be more unhappy by a gift I couldn’t use or really didn’t like. Multiply that by the number of folks in the family and it adds up.
$10 wouldn’t buy much where I live. Back in the 90’s when we did the gift exchange, the limit was $50. Even at that time, it was hard to get something decent for $50.
That’s one of the reasons we stopped doing the gift swap.
I hate Yankee swaps. They just seem so antithetical to the spirit of Christmas. I have a large local family. At one point we all got sick of struggling to find something more creative than the same old sweater or books to buy each other and we decided that we’d limit gift giving to going up or down generations. When the kids got older we gave up on even that and now just enjoy being together. Another option we considered was to give very small or homemade gifts to each other and/or gift by family, e.g., my family gives yours a tin of homemade fudge, yours gives mine a holiday scratch ticket for each member of the family. The idea was to make it as stress-free as possible.
IME the hard part will be to get everyone to agree. It took a couple for years for my family to agree not to gift, and even then, for the first couple of years a few people did anyway and then the others felt awkward about not having a gift in return. Now that things have settled I love the way it works. No one spends money and time searching for gift we don’t need and we have more time to focus on being together instead of being anxious about gifts.
ETA, we do still give gifts among out own nuclear families and we give the elderly grandparents a gift, while they give each family a monetary gift. We just don’t do gifts to cousins, uncles, nieces, adult siblings, etc.
Our group ranges from 24 to 93 and we do a $50ish nice present . Little kids still get individual gifts. I have to say we get a pretty good selection and yes, you get one chance to steal. Last year I got wine and an electric wine bottle opener and my dh got an air fryer (which I was very surprised at how happy that made him). My 32 year old daughter got a stack of best sellers. This year I am wrapping up a instant pot (Target black Friday sale) and dh is taking a table that expands and has a cooler in the bottom. People become creative and we have a lot of fun. I like it so much better than gag gifts. Receipts are often included so the option to return is also there.
Just fyi, our gag gifts are something we have around the house and want/need to get rid of. You’re not allowed to “buy” a gag gift. The purpose is to recycle not add.
For the 20 somethings, you could do a gift card exchange with something that goes with it, like a coffee cup and a starbucks card. or a grocery store card and a pot. They could do it as a blind swap or play a game to get first pick or first swap. I do like the idea of filling a stocking and swapping it in a circle game or just pick one. With only 5 cousins, they can each do one and as SO are added to the group, it’s easy to just have one more stocking to pick from. You could do a theme like “Something for your phone” and then they could get earbuds or a car holder.
For years we’ve had a tradition of giving everyone the same gift. Age 0-80, the same thing or type of thing. It all started when my brother gave a big box of ski caps and we just grabbed one that we liked. Other things we’ve given/received over the year are matching nightshirts (really cute when everyone is dressed in candycane striped nightshirts), turtlenecks with our names embroidered on the neck, games and puzzles (all different of course), christmas pillowcases, coffee cups with a family tree on them, slippers, flashlights (amazingly popular for all ages). My father always gave everyone lottery tickets. Sometimes you were a winner, sometimes not. Last year I made everyone fleece blankets, and they each picked the one they wanted (only a few fights!). This year they are getting ‘bowl cozies’ that are a potholder for eating hot soup on your lap.
I think it would be nice to put the adult children (cousins) in a draw with the aunts and uncles. One big happy family! Seriously, it could work. With this age group I personally don’t think there is any need for a large(er) dollar amount. I think $30-$40 could work.
I also think it’s nice to draw the names on Christmas this year or New Years for next year. That way everyone can keep their eyes open throughout the year for that perfect gift for the name they drew (during travels, craft shows, merchandise parties…).
I could have written your post. 4 cousins and now 1 step-cousin due to recent marriage. All in their 20’s. I want to stop it, as we just exchange gift cards. How ridiculous.
Every time I mention it to DH, he balks that he doesn’t mind giving them $50 each. Ok, so, now what happens when they get married? It’s beyond ridiculous, but i guess it’s not worth fighting over, I’m sure my BIL would just like to call it quits, too.
We are not celebrating Xmas with them this year. MIL is coming over Xmas day from their house. I’ll have the gift cards ready, but I’m hoping she comes over empty handed from anything BIL gives her.
Adults don’t exchange in our family. Kids and grandparents only. And “kids” are all teens ages 13-19. Not sure when we transition them to no gifts. After college? When they become parents themselves?
We switched to a gift exchange a couple of years ago. Include everyone, grandmas, adults and adult kids. $75.00
No one needs anything or in my adult son and his wife wants anything. My mom wants to stop even this because my kid and his wife can’t even think of one thing they want. Can you tell I’m annoyed?
I’d like to keep it, makes my Christmas so much easier. I think if we stopped the gift exchange, people would feel like they would have to get something and we’d be back to square one.
I usually like to get an interesting gadget for the grab bag and something more personal as a secret santa.