AIBU to hate the *adults don't need presents* brigade?

[Travis1]

Just that really? Hates probably a strong word but seriously dislike. Keep seeing it spouted on here continually but if adults don't need presents then on Christmas morning it's just me, DH and the cats staring at each other. When everyone else is out shopping for their little darlings barren old me will have 2 nieces and 1 nephew to buy for. Nothing else.

TTC 8 years so if it's not bad enough that I can't actually have kids now I can't have presents either? Feck off!

Why do people want to make others feel guilty for wanting to exchange gifts with the ones they love and to celebrate? Why shouldn't I buy my DH nice things and vice versa? Why shouldn't I buy MIL her favourite perfume that she wouldn't normally buy herself because of cost? Or my aunt tickets to a singer she's desperate to see?

Is it just martyrdom? Do these people actually not buy for anyone other than the children?!

This has given me inexplicable rage this morning

That's my point. It isn't about what the gift is, it's about the thoughtfulness behind it. Ditto the pp who says only edible stuff in her hoarder's home. Don't go buying them a giant teddy or whatever!

Completely this. It isn't about money, either. You sometimes get way more thoughtful presents if people are constrained by money because they have to really consider what suits the donee, instead of being able to just get the plastic out at eg the White Company.

Why do people want to make others feel guilty for wanting to exchange gifts with the ones they love and to celebrate? Why shouldn't I buy my DH nice things and vice versa?

I doubt one single person cares in the slightest if you do the entirely normal and expected act of swapping presents with your SO.

@Gingernaut Sadly, I don't know anyone who doesn't want cash.

I didn't want cash for my birthday (I never do). What I wanted was an accessory from a range available, and asked the giver if we could go and choose it together - local shop, would have taken no more than an hour which we both had free.

What I got in the end was a visit to the shop by myself one random day after my birthday was long gone, clutching the money that had been shoved in a card. Chose my own gift, had nobody to share the selection process with, took a picture of it and sent to the giver.

yay

Friends from eg uni and we just buy for one another's kids, because until we started having kids we never got one another presents anyway.

I normally think of myself as quite generous, but it's never even really occurred to me to buy presents for friends' kids at Christmas. I send a nice and quite big present when the child is born, and the couple of times I've been invited to a birthday party I've taken a gift, obviously. I might also take a very small (sweets or very cheap toy) token if visiting the child's parents. But I have never bought them a Christmas present. I'd have to buy about 15 if I started!

When I was a single mum of five, and the kids were small, apart from a token gift from my parents I had NOTHING. Christmas Day, or generally. All my money went on the children (and their bastard father didn't pay a penny). So now, all my children are grown up and earning far far more than me TOO DAMN RIGHT I WANT PRESENTS!

To be fair, they are very good at present buying and giving, but they are all adults. So, if we didn't do general presents, it would just be the grandsons and nobody else getting anything. Stuff that.

People stop buying adults presents because it gets too expensive. It's difficult when different people have different thoughts on present giving and some want to carry on and some don't. I don't really want presents because if I want something I buy it myself. But even saying that it is nice to get an unexpected gift. But this duty present buying for adults does get tiresome in a big family.

Good. So people that know you and love you know you read on a Kindle so the voucher is a considerate and thoughtful gift. Except only one of my family does it. The others insist on "stuff" and I get another bouquet, I hate cut flowers, chocolates, I could do with losing 10 lbs, or another voucher for tea at some posh hotel at the arse end of nowhere where I will be given some posh tea that isn't as nice as PG and lots of cream cakes, love cream cakes but unfortunately as I've got older my digestive system doesn't cope well with cream.

It always makes me laugh when people say they give such lovely thoughtful gifts and people love them. I smile and say how lovely and I am sure my family will tell you I love the lovely thoughtful gifts they buy. Visits are great, cards are lovely, Amazon vouchers always welcome and for the rest thanks for the thought.

@Viviennemary People stop buying adults presents because it gets too expensive.

No it really doesn't. I just ordered someone a birthday present that cost me £1.82 delivered to my door. I think the recipient will love it and it is suits her to a tee.

Sure I could have paid 10x (or 100x) that if I wanted, but why, when this was just a fab little thing that has her name all over it (not literally!)

So they have to scrimp to buy everyone else’s kids presents and get nothing themselves?

Delighted I would not be.

It makes perfect sense. The couple on a tight budget has to be less gifts. Less out of pocket. And buying for kids is pretty cheap and easy.

@OP: somebody is preventing you and your DH from buying each other gifts? really? Do what you want.

People stop buying adults presents because it gets too expensive.

I'd add boring, repetitive and useless. I can't stand the obligation of buying useless gifts, and I hate getting them myself. This outdated custom needs modification.

It makes perfect sense. The couple on a tight budget has to be less gifts. Less out of pocket. And buying for kids is pretty cheap and easy.

But even better for this couple - and much kinder, especially as they seem to be younger and on a smaller budget than everyone else - would be if they bought for the kids, as they currently do, but each family gave them a gift in return.

I'd add boring, repetitive and useless. I can't stand the obligation of buying useless gifts, and I hate getting them myself. This outdated custom needs modification.

This sort of sneery attitude is exactly what the OP was talking about. If you don't like presents that's fine (obviously) but why be so dismissive of the 'outdated custom' when so many people do like it?

And its gets to the point where people are sending lists asking for what they want and you're spending exactly the same amount as each other it's ridiculous. You may as well just say we'll get our own presents and say it's from each other! Also I think a lot of people would rather buy them self something useful they need rather than get given something they don't want and having spent their money on the person who gave them it. I'd rather people helped charities like Granny and stopped making Christmas about gifts. It's about so much more and if gifts define your Christmas that much you need to look at other aspects of your life.

I'm not against gifts I just don't care either way. I buy gifts for people who want them.

@reluctantlord thank you for demonstrating so beautifully the type of posts to which I was referring in my OP

People don't mean that adults shouldn't get presents. Its not an attack on childless adults.

I love presents but I have everything I need. Me and OH have a joint bank account so I am paying for my own Christmas presents.
So 'adults don't need presents' generally means 'don't get in debt/a stress about finding me something'

Its really not about excluding those without kids.

Anyway, come on MN on Christmas day and see ALL the threads posted by people livid, fuming and incandescent with rage about the rubbish presents their OHs/IL/DPs have bastard bought them.
It will explain the 'adults don't need presents' thing.

I agree with you OP. I remember being the only adult sibling who was single, no children. Christmas Day at my mums with 5 lovely nieces and nephews (and my siblings) was great but a little part of me ached for something. I loved spending my money on them, I did, but even a box of Lindt chocs or a school photo in a card was seemingly too much yet my mum, their granny, was showered with gifts on Christmas Day. I remember going upstairs to the loo once and crying because it felt so cruel.
I know that sounds pathetic but I just wanted a tiny acknowledgement of their affection for me.

The expression used was 'let's all just buy for the children now'.

Yeah great, why not make me feel more different from you all than I already do.

Does this piety about "not bothering with little old me" also extend to birthdays too?

I don't know if it's intentional but your choice of language makes you sound quite confrontational.

Me and OH don't get each other presents on birthdays either, no. But we're not pious or joyless. We have a birthday tradition of getting as much of the family together as possible and ordering a few pizzas, and we always buy a massive cake and do the whole singing happy birthday and blowing out candles thing. It's fun!

In some ways this thread is demonstrating that the opposite of the OP is also true, I guess people just find it hard to understand that different people do different things, and can be quite happy either way! One person even said not buying gifts sends a bad message to children and means the kids will grow up with issues!

So there you go, OP. The moral of the story is that people will talk nonsense from all sides of a debate. Best to just live your life in whatever way makes you happy.

Hear hear OP!

I don't buy in to the whole 'but Christmas is all about the kids' nonsense.

we all have kids bar one couple and they are young/not married/on a very tight budget so are delighted with the set up of kids only.

Agree with the PP that you need to rethink their 'delight'. They sound very well-mannered, but nobody young and skint and childless is going to think, "Yay, I have to buy lots of presents for kids of people with lots more money than me, while they get me sod all!" How could they? Surely the reasonable thing to do is to say that while they are childless the rest of you will buy them gifts as well, but all other gifts go to kids? That way they get presents and give presents.

Honestly, I think you sound rather thoughtless. The current plan is heads they lose, tails you - or at least your kids - win.

@DiegoMadonna Me and OH don't get each other presents on birthdays either, no. But we're not pious or joyless. We have a birthday tradition of getting as much of the family together as possible and ordering a few pizzas, and we always buy a massive cake and do the whole singing happy birthday and blowing out candles thing. It's fun

It does sound fun! In your case it sounds like your family give you their time. Which is in itself a gift - see my other pp about my birthday accessory. Gifts don't always come wrapped in a bow, they can be whatever has meaning (earlier in the thread I also referenced a catch up with a friend as just as valuable too, and I mean it). Seems like many posters on this thread think "good present = expensive shop bought thing", when that couldn't be further from the truth.

Someone else said they liked a nice card - the sender taking time to write a personal message in a carefully picked card is lightyears away from scrawling "HB from Jenny and co" on whatever card the BP garage had, while leaning on the postbox before last post the day before.

Your day sounds really lovely and I would quite like to have the same as you too, but sadly my family don't quite see it the same and think that £20 shoved in a card for me to go buy myself something is equivalent to just spending time together. Will you raise a glass to me the next time you have a do like that please?

Different to yours, thecats, but it reminded me of my first BF's grandparents who, when presented with the idea of buying me Pictionary (the game) didn't really "get" it and instead bought me an Oxford English Dictionary.

the issue is people blubbering over how much hard work it is doing presents. The work is all voluntary.

I think the inelegant phrase is 'shit, or get off the pot'.

I ponder this one every year, when my family says 'no presents for adults'. However nice it is to buy gifts for the kids, you either end up giving them money (they have everything else) or your present becomes just one of the mounting pile of stuff they get. Even though they always thank me by phone/card afterwards, I sometimes wonder whether they actually remember what I gave them!

I like getting presents, and I like giving presents. So I still give small, thoughtful presents to all the key adults in my life, and hope to get the same back. I buy a selection of nice things for my DH and he does the same for me.

One person even said not buying gifts sends a bad message to children and means the kids will grow up with issues!

So there you go, OP. The moral of the story is that people will talk nonsense from all sides of a debate.

Gosh, did they? Where?

I don't see what it has to do with being childfree. In fact, maybe the childfree need presents less than anyone else because we have all that lovely disposable income to buy things for ourselves as and when we want. I'm sorry, but I hate the Christmas present merry-go-round. Having to expend energy thinking of the perfect but appropriately-priced present that someone else could get you. Something that you want, but not so much that it's annoying not to be able to just buy the damn thing and have it straight away. Having to tail round the shops finding stuff for other people that they probably don't want anyway. And then all the endless stuff fills everyone's homes to bursting until it gets shuffled off into landfill. It's wasteful and unnecessary, and not a good way to show you care about someone. I'd rather we all didn't bother. It's the decorations and thr food and the music and the come-in-from-the-cold warmth and welcoming that makes Christmas special. Not the presents.