We do a grab bag with adults and a separate one for cousins (all of our kids). Half of my large family is on the west coast and half on the east. This year the adults are doing an experience gift…restaurant gift card, show tickets etc. We all have a lot of stuff. We host Christmas Eve for West Coast family and I get a little something for everyone that comes to my house. This year for the young kids I purchased Christmas mugs half off last year post holiday. I bought hot cocoa packages and marshmallows to go with. For the adults I give them a jar of my aged egg nog with a big festive bow on it or a plate of cookies to take home.
I just want to wake up and have it be January, lol.
We’ve never been big on gifts. No regrets. Each kid gets one gift from us and Santa fills their stockings, mostly with candy (even now that they’ve graduated college). Santa brings one gift too - often shared among the three of them. H and I just use the holiday as an excuse to get something we want or need. One year it was a new toilet. Last year it was 23 and Me Kits. I suppose we have a wide range of needs/interests. We’re not sure what we’re getting this year. We gave our kids a small amount of money when they were young to get one gift for each brother and parent. We go in together as a family buying for the grandparents (almost always one gift each) and aunts/uncles/cousins. There’s only two cousins, so that’s not a lot.
I’ll admit to never understanding the idea of tons of gifts. Obviously gift giving isn’t one of my love languages! We prefer to splurge on traveling instead - not over Christmas though. We spend that with extended family. There are other months to travel for pure exploration.
This reminds me of my in laws. It was always “buy for the kids”, but it does turn into a crazy scramble because they are a large family. But then my MIL would buy for her kids and the spouses, so the adults did have something to open. Also, luckily everyone had kids or it would be very unfair. I like the idea that the kids should see that the adults are getting presents too, and that it is not all just about receiving. Honestly we are moved on to grandkids now and they are little so that message is getting lost in the mess…but it will come around!
My MIL gets gifts for some folks and not for others. It’s crazy. For several years, she has mailed something to one of my kids, but not the other. And she very often sends a gift for DH, but not me.
Don’t get me going!
Our family quit exchanging gifts years ago when the kids grew up. Now I give cash to each of my kids and DIL. My family is really small, so two years ago I bought “prizes” and gift wrapped each one. We play bingo and the winner gets to choose a gift and open it. If one bingos a second time, he can trade with someone who has already opened a “prize,” but each person can only unwrap one package. It is very hard to find prizes generic enough for male and female, ages 28 to 85. Mostly, I get consumables. Last year, the most traded for prize was LED light bulbs! haha. We also play cards and I have a prize for the winner and one for the loser. It is fun and everyone gets to open a present. Except me.
I no longer gift my siblings, nephews and nieces, or my mother. I do still gift my kids but nowadays it’s a set sum of $ to be used for something we agree on i.e. I don’t want them squandering on Starbucks, LOL. Last year, one kid used the $ to purchase stock, and the others purchased ski & snowboard equipment, and they always get a stocking and new pajamas! For my great-nephews & nieces, who receive more gifts that FAO Schwartz has inventory (!), I give them a joint gift i.e. a day out to Legoland / bowling alley / zoo / safari park etc.
My college aged nephews and nieces love CASH more than any of the dozens of plastic toys they got when they were little. Forgo the gift cards for college kids and go with USD!
We buy only for the kids in the extended family and even that is becoming difficult. My SIL can’t think of what her 7 year old needs. Imagine? He has everything and they don’t want more plastic junk!
I love Christmas - loooove it. And I have been able to continue to love it because my family long ago gave up on any obligatory giving. I buy for my kids and spouse only unless there’s something my mom wants that she won’t buy herself. But the best way to enjoy buying gifts is to buy them for people who really need them. There’s always an Angel tree at the mall and our local Children’s Hospital has one too. My kids and I used to shop for an “adopt a family” program through the school district. It feels like you get the gift of Christmas spirit yourself when you make someone else’s Christmas a happy day. I honestly think the antidote to grinchiness is to lose the “have to” gifts and embrace the ways in which you really want to give.
I don’t have any children (I mean little kids) to buy for. I don’t even know any little kids, except the neighbor kids. I love giving my adult kids and son-in-law Christmas presents. I’m making something for one brother and the other one will be overseas. My kids are always appreciative and one of them is a gift giving genius. If it isn’t fun why do it?
My brother’s family solved the gift overload problem by celebrating the 12 days of Christmas -opening 1 present a day. I hated it when we visited. You’d give them a present, but if it wasn’t your day to be opened they wouldn’t open it. We started visiting them for New Years instead. 
By then they were generally also willing to let our presents be opened.
We do a Yankee swap for the adults and all the under age 18 (the oldest is 13 now) get presents or gift cards depending on age.
My husbands family doesn’t celebrate together so that eliminates a lot of gifts. A few years ago we changed my family gift exchange to kids under 18 exchanging names and adults exchanging names. My parents still buy something for everyone and my siblings and I usually also buy for them in addition to the exchange. So with my family of 5, that is 5 gifts plus 2 for my parents. It’s nice because we all get one more expensive and thoughtful gift because there are fewer gifts to buy overall.
Within my immediate family, years ago my husband took each kid shopping and funded them to buy a gift for me and their siblings. This gift exchange has honestly become the highlight of the season for me because the kids (17, 19, 21) are so excited to GIVE their presents. Brings momma to tears
I love the juxtiposition of the gift giving threads and thr empty nest, downsizing, bag a week threads.
I love the different types of celebrations, and different ways of celebrating and gift-giving. For myself, I will always buy gifts for my siblings as long as I have them. Our parents died years ago. As for my nephews, I only see one (the other two have pretty much separated themselves from the family). I will give presents to him and his family. It works for us.
mathmom, we did that also. There were so many gift sent by mail that we had our kids open one a day. However, if there was a gift giver present ? well, of course! the kids would have been thrilled to open their gift. Weird that you B did not do this.
Gifts are not my thing. I’m uncomfortable picking them out and uncomfortable receiving them.
When someone told me Gifts were a Love Language, suddenly a LOT of things made sense.
I would like to add that a lot of my “meh” attitude with gifts is because H and I have always lived far from family and while we spent Christmas with them a few times ( a mess- juggling time to see both families), we spent most holidays alone. Family members were never willing to travel to spend Christmas with us which was the only thing we really wanted. My inlaws never came and my parents only once(we had a great time and my kids were thrilled to have grandparents there). Having a pile of gifts to open never made up for that.
This is the second year we will have done a gerational name draw. I have two siblings and we each have spouses. That makes six of us. We can’t draw our own spouse’s name because it’s assumed each married couple will give gifts to their own spouses. So my brother and I will buy gifts for each other, my H and my sister have each other’s names, and my BIL and brother’s wife have one another’s. My parents aren’t a part of the draw. They aren’t obligated to buy gifts for anyone but one another, but we (the sibs) have all agreed that we will all buy gifts for mom and dad, because well…mom and dad… Plus our parents are octogenarians on a fixed income, so we don’t want to burden them financially or in any other way.
Likewise ‘the kids” (my S and D, my sister’s S and D, my niece’s fiancé and my DIL) will exchange names. Spouses and significant others can’t draw one another’s names, again with the assumption that they will give gifts to each other as a matter of course.
We’ve set a minimum of 50 dollars for each name drawn. This is necessary because one of the parties to the name draw has gained a reputation for miserliness :)) . It worked extremely well last year, so we’ll probably continue in this way until it no longer does so. My 12 yr. old step-granddaughter will receive a gift from everyone because she’s the only actual child in the family at this point. It’s simplified things for all involved, and will cost everybody a bit less overall.
We parents are also buying gifts for our own children, but not the nieces and nephews. Likewise, the kids are all buying for their own parents, but not the aunts and uncles.