To want the pointless exchange of presents to stop

Yes! I keep saying this, I don't want any more 'stuff' and don't want to buy anyone 'stuff' they don't need or want. we have managed to stop it with my family and are going away for a weekend instead but my husband and his sibling have been less easy - they normally exchange a £30 voucher with each other which feels like the most pointless exercise ever. I think we have possibly seen this off in more recent years, hopefully!
I love Xmas but the shopping element ruins it for me.

We have a massive present swap and we love it. Lots of presents for our parents, siblings, nieces and nephews.
However it’s not pointless tat. Everyone has lists that getting shared so we end up with toiletries, books, items for our hobbies, etc. that we actually want, i like a particular chocolate that I feel is too extravagant to buy myself so i get this at Christmas.
I did suggest a secret Santa one year but no-one wanted to do it. I didn’t want to do it either but asked in case anyone else wanted to.

We don’t do adults in our family for Christmas but that’s because there’s a lot of children.

even that I have tried bringing up in the past about how it’s unnecessary and wasteful for all the kids to get a present from each other member of the family.

I suggested a secret santa for all adult members to buy for one of the children (with a bigger budget than we’d usually spend per child) and was met with crickets!

So much unnecessary plastic crap, the kids can’t tell you two minutes after they’ve opened the presents who got them what and they just don’t need it all.

Why are there so many threads about this recently? The best bit of Christmas is spoiling everyone!

I totally agree op. We buy for the children in our family and that's it. I know so many people who buy for every single adult in their family and receive a gift from every adult in their family. Their whole December wages go on this. It's madness.

Can you suggest a family secret Santa for the adults where you pick a name out the hat and buy that one person a slightly more expensive gift that they’d really like?
Then present giving still happens but everyone only buys and receives one gift.

I think you have to be really careful here with child free people. It would be a right kick in the teeth to cancel Christmas for them on top of what might be an already tough time. We do book and a bottle for adults but we are a very booky family xx

On my side of the family we have never done adults. Mil and dh love gifts so..

I buy for four friends. No relatives. That’s it.

I put YABU because no one is forced to buy gifts.
“Hi family, we are only buying for the children in the family going forward so please don’t feel the need to buy for us”
They can decide to either buy or not buy for you, problem solved

I opted out of presents both giving and receiving years ago (except for children). I love it! Everybody else still does it though so I'm the odd one out not participating. My DH would like to do the same but doesn't have the confidence to tell his family that. So every year I have to remind him "you know you still have to buy a present for your mum/dad/brother" and end up supporting him heavily through that process.
I hate getting presents, even if they're nice things. Ooh it's a nice scarf! But I already had a nice scarf and now I'm burdened with disposing of one of them. Items are a burden.

We don’t do adult gifts in our family- it’s so much better!!! Just put your foot down one year and say I’m not buying adult gifts and I don’t want any in return

We do a secret Santa with my sis in law bro in law and their three adult kids plus partners
We ( me hubby married daughters)
We each spend £25 on one person ...( this is picked using Elster ...so it's secret ..we post a few things we would like with links ..up to £15 value and then £10 is spent on a surprise gift )
We all get together day after Boxing Day ..taking it in turns to host ....and swap gifts over drinks and some sort of food !
It's been so much less stressful and actually fun .

I’ve cut down this year. Managed to drop 6 presents from the list. Thank not adult presents I’m getting are my adult children , DH, mil and fíl. I really want to stop mil and fíl but it’s proving impossible. They have everything they could posssibly want or need.

We only buy for kids. Then do family secret Santa on my side - set amount, which is fun. I was against it to start with. On my DH’s side the present buying is insane so I now leave that to him.

I read once of two brothers. Each Christmas they gave each other a subscription to an identical motoring magazine. They would not have treated themselves to it and were both happy.

Martin Lewis summed it up
brilliantly. I stopped this stupidity a few years ago - it was life changing and means I can concentrate on the under 18s.

I have a small family....we only give regifts.
You regift something you have been given that you hate or you can spend £5 in a charity shop.
It can be very funny and once I was regifted something I had regifted someone else two years ago.
The kids still get presents so everyone is happy!

We only gift to children at Christmas bar giving my parents/in laws a calendar made up of the kids pictures taken over the course of the year. If they didn’t ask that we do that then we wouldn’t give to any grown ups.
As a family that rule was brought in by everyone once the last sibling had children. I wouldn’t have a clue what to buy them and they have enough money to buy the things that they want/need.

It does seem pointless and even worse than that, when you look at families where there are very uneven incomes amongst the relatives. Poor people expected to buy expensive gifts for rich siblings who already have everything, and receiving expensive gifts in return when they'd much rather just hang onto their own much-needed money.

My advice is to meet up for enjoyable meals or parties at some stage during the season, but don't bother with presents except for children.

We do the same thing in our family. We started doing this in 2013, and it's a lot simpler. We all agree a budget, and we all put in a wish list to give other people an idea of stuff that's actually wanted. It is still fun - if you have different things on the list, you won't know what you're getting, but at least you know it is something that you want/will use. Plus it's less tat, less waste, less stress (and less to wrap!) you save money - not everyone can afford to spend hundreds or thousands on Xmas presents for all, but a one off spend of £30 is more achievable.

I buy DH and MIL a few practical bits and that’s it. Only MIL gets a card. . We go out for a meal now at the end of January as a group instead.

100% agree. present bloat is a real thing, and like you, I've not been fully successful in getting rid of it.

All I want is people to only give presents to those they actually want to give a present to. People they love enough to put the effort in to thinking about and trying really hard to get a gift for. If that is only 2-3 people, fine, great.. those should be all the gifts you give/receive.

My problem is that people feel obliged to give gifts, so they either do one of two things:

They either ask/give detailed product-specific lists..
Or they buy random tat with no thought.

The second is awful in terms of waste and leads to unwanted presents and unnecessary spending. So family's try and solve it by moving to the first, which does end up avoiding people getting presents that they don't want, but it takes away the genuine care/effort that goes into thinking of, researching and finding a great gift. It automates the process to a pretty robotic action that can be as quick as a couple of clicks on amazon. At that point, what is the point? It is no longer a manifestation of care at all. You are just a sliver of the effort away from just giving them cash and letting them order it themselves.

I love giving and receiving presents, all sounds a bit sad to me

I’ve really cut back. I don’t want more ‘stuff’ in my house. My adult DCs have very specific tastes so I buy them exactly what they want- or send them money.
The things I need are quite specific too such as new bras!
Sometimes it’s nice to unwrap gifts but I’m not feeling it this year for various reasons.
I think it’s completely different if you have young children who believe in Father Christmas. It’s a totally different feeling and exciting.