To think this is a really odd way to do gifts

[itsgoodtobehome]

DH's family's way of doing Christmas gifts goes something like this:
He has a conversation with, say his brother (but can equally apply to anyone in his family). He'll ask what he wants for Christmas. Brother will say, "oh, I bought myself a new cycling jacket a couple of weeks ago, you can get me that. It was £xx." Then he will ask DH what he wants, and DH will give a similar response with a similar monetary value. So in their minds, they have sorted out each others Christmas presents without any money or gifts having actually changed hands. This routine is then repeated with every other member of the family.

IABU to find this bizarre? In my family, we actually go out and buy each other gifts, wrap them and hand them over.

YANBU - this is a very odd way to do things
YABU - this is actually very efficient, saves a lot of hassle, and ends up with the same end result

How about just buy what you want for yourself ? You can redirect the money towards something you want and so can everyone else.

But that is EXACTLY what they're doing!

I think it's rather sweet.

That's how it ended up between us siblings. As adults you buy what you want already. We got fed up of exchanging like that. My uncle will buy himself something, then give it to me to wrap! We have now stopped adult presents for this reason. Now the children get the gifts (we still buy uncle's because he gets for our child).

I truly love this idea. Gift giving is an absolute minefield. See MN Xmas Day afternoon and boxing day threads of hurt, sadness and anger over receiving terrible gifts from loved ones.

Me personally, I've gotten very fussy in my old age and hate receiving gifts that aren't right and feel it is a waste of money for the giver and confirms that they don't actually know me at all. I'm polite enough to thank the giver but it is incredibly rare that I have been given something I want and cherish. I used to spend ages finding the right gift for my loved ones and felt it wasn't reciprocated so now everyone gets a big box of chocolates.

We increasingly do this. It means you get exactly what you want rather than almost what you want. It saves the disappointment of those years when someone has picked up on your hints of the item you'd like but gets it in a different colour/scent/flavour to what you were dreaming of. This applies to everything from fancy pants bath oil to Lindt balls! Take my mum this year who wants a camera bag. Well that's easy to sort but what colour does she want? Black or navy would be safe but does she want something a bit more fun? If she'd told me the exact item or just bought it herself, it would save me the worry of whether she'll like it, her being too polite to say she'll swap it for a different colour but would have cost the exact same amount. For the family members we don't see at Christmas, we don't bother with gifts at all but just upgrade the experience when we do meet up - go to a slightly fancier restaurant than we might otherwise or something like that.

Sounds a bit odd, but if it works for them then its a great idea! My sisters and I ask each what we would like, I got my older DS a Kerastase hair mask and my other a set of wine glasses .
I like to buy stuff that is going to be actually be used, if I ever buy blindly for them I always say I don't mind if they re gift.

I understand it but it does seem to take the joy out of Christmas day unless they wrap up the item?!

I do this with a couple of relatives. But I make a rule for myself that I can't use the item until after Christmas (no idea if they do the same). That way the joy is that I have my new thing.

My parents have a systems where they each buy themselves a gift and wrap it, but they don't tell the other what they bought. The surprise on Christmas morning is finding out what they bought for the other person

I absolutely hate this idea. But then I don't get the angst about Christmas present buying. It's always pretty unproblematic in my family. Everyone provides a bit of a wish list, with enough room for a bit of personal choice from the giver. Everyone has nice presents, that they actually want, to open on Christmas Day. If it's just a financial transaction, what's the point?

We do similar and have done for years. It's joyful because I'm not spending today for example - the Saturday before Christmas - frantically searching shops, exhausted, for a XYX computer game, a size XS long-sleeved nightshirt in green or blue, (no writing or slogans), a Bosch two-speed multi tool, a small bottle of a perfume "she might like". Etc. I'm not agonising over this one or that one (and actually she/ he / they like neither).

I'm going to have a lovely time with my family today - Christmas joy! No pressure - just a lovely time doing the tree, pre-prepping some Christmas food for the freezer.

And no sinking hearts on Christmas day when in spite of their "How lovely!" you know that it just isn't. And when you open the gloves/ perfume/ airfryer you know you're going to have to live with something that isn't really what you wanted. Almost - but not.

Now we give ourselves license to spend on ourselves and we put a tiny treat under the tree for Christmas morning, (chocolate, crisps, pot of jam type of thing).

DH’s family do a secret Santa as well for the adults but with a twist. SIL creates one of these secret Santa websites and gives a maximum price the gifts that’ll be shown and the shops are within a budget. Everyone goes on it and select 2 items as their wish list of what they’ll like for Christmas.
The website gives everyone a name at the end of November and we buy an item from the wish list. The surprise is what they’ll get you from your wish list and who is buying foR you. Christmas is then cheap for everyone and straightforward. We also don’t get together often at Christmas because we live in different countries and this way, everyone still gets a gift from a shop that’s local to them and gets delivered to them.
No one is obligated to buy for kids either as there are currently 4 grandchildren and 3 of them are ours but the grandparents do. Again what they do is give us the money and we buy the gifts and wrap (from them). That way, the children gets what they want as well.

Only if 'unwrapping stuff on Christmas day' is something that gives you joy. To me, it seems completely pointless if you already know what the item is.

To me, the joy of Christmas day is a nice dinner with family, games, a walk, TV and noticing that daylight has started to get longer again.

Presents I can take or leave. I rarely want anything and if I do, I just buy it. The chances of someone else randomly choosing something that I like and it being 'right' is extremely low.

It’s much less wasteful and sounds so easy!

I can absolutely see the logic of this, especially for adults. They get exactly what they want and it’s much easier. Makes it a bit joyless and not fun but if they don’t see each other for Christmas I can sort of get it.

Me and my sister have a similar arrangement for birthdays. She will buy herself the latest SK book for her birthday and I will do the same for mine. (We don't live near each other) Its tradition 😄

I still remember the feeling of shock when FIL handed me a gift he had bought himself, so that I could wrap it (wife's work wrapping) whilst letting me know how much it was. I can see the logic in it but I can see more logic in not bothering at all...

I know. And yet there's so much resistance, often from people who would normally jump at the chance of reducing the amount of life admin they have to do and dislike the amount of clutter and waste there is in a modern consumerist society.

This is a great idea.

Nothing to open and zero surprises. Very sad way of doing things. I'd rather have a chocolate orange all wrapped up than a pair of jeans I bought myself last month.

We just don't even do presents for adults. The only people I buy for at Christmas are my dc, Dh and my mum. So much less stressful!

I would say that it's actually very rare for this to happen. Over the years I have shown "joy" at exactly the right gift and heard the giver's relief, (and story about how they weren't sure but they'd heard me mention XYZ and knew I liked ABC - it was just they weren't sure which colour/model/size - so they were so glad I liked it!)>
And then felt guilt and disappointment every time I looked at this "wrong" item for as long as I had it in my home.

(Examples:

• suede gloves that were "perfect" but the wrong shade of brown.
• a toaster - 2 slice and nice enough but I'd had my heart set on a DeLonghi 4 slice for my new kitchen
• new bottle of my "favourite" perfume - which I was actually tired of and had been looking for something new and fresh. (It wd last ages and was ££££££££)
• really pretty silver earrings that I loved - but were too small for my face and would have really suited someone twenty years younger.

But I showed so much joy and delight that these people who loved me had got it just right.

My brother started doing this (it is very much a thing in his wife's family) so I soon suggested that we only do presents for the kids. It's so joyless.

That’s just ‘not doing gifts’ whilst pretending that they do 😆

I'd like this. Christmas is ruined for me by the presents, the stress , the expense, the total excess of buying yet more stuff when it's production and supply is trashing our planet.
If only we could take the presents out if Christmas and just celebrate being together.

I find the whole concept of buying for other adults a bit strange if I'm honest. The joy of Christmas to me is about eating, drinking and spending time with family and friends, not running around like a headless chicken, stressed from trying to think of presents for adults. We just buy for children. It's all too commercialised in my humble opinion.

We tend to buy each other exactly what was asked for.
i get why people are saying there’s no point but I know that I (and probably my brother) would end up not getting ourselves something as the money could be better spent on something the household needs. This way we’re forced to budget for it and we all get something for ourselves.