Christmas!
First of all, I am sorry as I know it’s only August, but a couple of my family members start buying early next month so I need to get my plan in place now and looking for suggestions/experiences of others.
Do you think it’s unreasonable to say no presents for adults this year? Has anyone done it before and how did it go?
I will continue to buy for my husband and children as normal and also my in laws as my husband is an only child so they literally won’t get any presents otherwise.
My immediate family (mum, dad, sister, sisters fiancé) are nearly all notoriously difficult to buy for. My dad is an exception as he actually has hobbies and loves making things/gadgets so I always manage to get him things easily. The rest are a complete nightmare and the last two years they have said they don’t want anything and just asked for money, or have given no ideas at all. I like to make a lot of effort getting something I think people would like, but I’m obviously not very good when it comes to my sister and her fiancé as I can tell they never really like anything/returned it, so I just gave them cash for the last 2 years.
My mum is a really lazy gift giver, she can never be bothered to try and think of something that you might like, so she just asks what we want and even if you send her a direct link, she will always just ask me/my sister to buy it ourselves and she will pay us back and then wrap it up. I just find it completely pointless. She will also ask for ideas for my husband and I end up giving her things off my list so I then struggle to find something for him myself. I have my own Christmas shopping to buy, I don’t want to be doing anyone else’s as well. Failing that it’s money in a card which is fine if that’s what someone has asked for because they are saving towards something, but last year we all just exchanged money in a card so it felt like a waste of time and that we were doing it for the sake of it. I do also feel a bit resentful that no one can be bothered to ever make an effort for me when I really do make an effort for everyone else.
I suggested a secret Santa this year between the adults as I thought everyone needing to buy one gift would be easy and less stressful. The idea was for everyone to write down a few ideas of things they might like so whoever got you could go out and buy from the list if they couldn’t think of anything themselves (trying to make it easy for my mum). My dad was up for it as he never gets involved with gift giving so think he was excited for the challenge. My mum wasn’t happy she just said ‘she would rather give money’ aka, she can’t be bothered to make any effort, even for one person. My sister also wasn’t keen as she’s a bit of an attention seeker and likes to go a bit over the top with gifts which then makes everyone else feel guilty. Sisters fiancé is generally just miserable so didn’t have an opinion and kept quiet.
I was speaking to my husband last night and I’m now feeling like I might just say we aren’t buying presents for adults this year and for them not to buy us anything either. I really do not see the point in withdrawing money from a ATM to receive it back, I would rather just keep it in my bank account, and I refuse to buy my own presents for my mum to wrap up.
The only reason I’m not sold on the idea is because they will still buy for my children so they would be spending money on my family and we wouldn’t be buying anything for them in return which I feel a bit cheeky about.
What would you all do?
Has anyone managed to successfully stop buying gifts for adults? How was your Christmas with no presents?