Had a chat with friends last night. Every one of us experienced fallout last year from The Person Who Is Just Really Hard Work About Presents Or Cards.
We had:
The person whose mother went into a big huff because my friend sent her a bouquet of flowers with a card attached to it, but not an entire separate Christmas card as well. Because That's Not A Proper Card, I Need A Proper Card.
The person whose sister made passive aggressive remarks because her box of chocolates was presented in a fancy paper carrier bag with a rosette stuck to it, rather than fully wrapped up in the traditional way.
The person whose mum went all silent because the Christmas card was one from a box rather than an ultra special one-off Christmas card.
The person with the cousin who (when speaking to other family members later on in the year) was acidic about the fact that their kid's present (sent through the mail) arrived a little bit late.
The person whose sister-in-law is just really really hard work, puts huge amounts of time and effort into "thoughtful" gifts and then makes remarks to her husband about how nobody else puts the effort in etc. etc.
The problem with these kinds of people is they never seem to be open to scaling down gift expectations, doing no-gift pacts or a family secret santa either.
It's just so... exhausting and sucks joy from the holiday season. I can't believe that having such uptight expectations of other people actually makes people happy?