How to tactfully say we dont want to do gifts anymore.

[moanycoo]

Has anyone stopped this silly gifting in their family? I am sick of wasting time and money, stressing and guessing what to buy adults. I am also fed up of receiving crap I dont want or need.
Is there a tactful way to say- No more gifts for the adults in the family?
Isnt it about being together?

This! Many people will have already done their shopping.

I think you can easily suggest it and might find everyone is relieved. Not 10 days before Christmas though!

Just make sure everyone is on board and knows the plan!

Years ago, I'd somehow finished my Christmas shopping in Oct. MIL knew this, and only then announced that we were all to only give to the children now. So I unwrapped and returned the adult gifts that I could.

Christmas day, I was shocked to receive gifts because MIL had decided to change the plans yet again- without telling us 😡

I tried suggesting this a few years ago. My sister wasn't on board, so we continue with the present giving.

Perhaps I could have stood my ground but I love Christmas and didn't want to cause bad feeling by opting out unilaterally.

So here I am, stressing about gift giving again for yet another year!

Out of interest, are they thoughtful presents, ‘hilarious’ tat or does everyone just buy each other wine ( so you’re back to wondering why the bother ) ?

My ils say the same every year. Thry dont want/need anything, etc. Only dh insists we buy for them🙄
And they still get us. Sil will be out in tbe sales bulk buying anything marked down come january, ahead of next christmas🙄 her car will be filled several times over by the time shes finished. Its riduculous

I suggested no more presents to / from adults. I purposefully chose the timing to be a few months before my birthday so I was the first to suffer the consequence.

Nothing Grinch about that. I stopped buying for Adults years ago, and don't see what half the angst is about, when people seem unable to put a stop to Adult present buying, when they really want too.

This.
You can’t say something without actually saying it 🤷🏻‍♀️

We do a family adult meal at some point in the year instead of adult presents. No one ‘needs’ anything in our family, money is tight and we’d rather enjoy the evening out.

I already posted up thread but I'd gladly give up the gifts between my in-laws and us. Some of the tat we've had includes polyester onesie for me 3 sizes too small, a Topgun CD for a 50p label still on it and a polyester balaclava (black burglar style with eye slits) for DH!

You either insist you want out and live with the inevitable hurt feelings and annoyance of others
Definitely this option. Why would people be hurt and annoyed? Do people really enjoy trudging round the shops or endlessly scrolling to buy stuff and sad about not receiving stuff they could just get for themselves? Isn't a massive relief for the majority to be able to opt out?

OP if your DH wants to carry on with his family he can. They can get for him and him for them and you can still opt out. I have no idea what DH has bought for PIL and they know not to get for me or will get something that could just about be categorised as a joint present even though it's clearly DH that has chosen it.

My side don't do it at all

i Did this a few years ago (also in September!) with my brother and his wife who we were lucky if we saw once a year (they live 30 minutes away but apparently are too busy to make time more often). My niece barely recognised us most Christmas’ and we had to be reintroduced to her. Gifts were just a transactional mutual transfer of £ for the kids. It felt a bit pointless really.

I suggested we forget gifts going forward (still do token massive bag of chocolates for them). Which went down like a lead balloon.

In retrospect while I felt uncomfortable with the decision at first I’m now ok with it. We still (despite my continued efforts to “get the kids together “) see each other only at Christmas.

See I would have loved this with my brother and his family. Sounds perfect and a much better use of time and money.

I posted almost an identical post months ago and was told I was being miserable and tight... MN eh?

I think your absolutely right and personally this is my last year sending gifts to family members I rarely see.

If you genuinely can't understand why people might be hurt and annoyed then I'm not sure what I could say that would enlighten you.

Gifting for people I love and receiving their gifts is not, for me, "trudging round the shops or endlessly scrolling to buy stuff". It's sticking to lists of things people have said they would like, getting them those things, giving them to them because I love them and enjoy the chance to give them something they will themselves enjoy.

YMMV and that's fine but, you know, not everyone is you and not everyone feels the way you do :)

We've scaled our adult buying right back and do secret santa and presents for the kids only. It's a lot easier, everyone still has something to open, but it's not crazy.

Next year you could turn up wearing your gifts and say “But I thought we were doing fancy dress?!”

We only bought for the kids in the family, stopped when they all turned 18. Have never bought for the adults and yet still received completely useless gifts from the Inlaws (that we hardly ever see) year after year. DH was reluctant to say anything so a couple of years back I finally said please don’t buy us anything from now on, we’re adults, if we want something we’ll buy it ourselves. Don’t know if they were offended or not 🤷🏻‍♀️ but now we just get a card and that’s fine with us.

I don't really understand no. If it's buying off a list I don't want see the joy in doing that any more than going to Asda and buying groceries off a list. If it's not off a list then it's tedious mental gymnastics at a busy time of year.

Fair enough if you genuinely enjoy that task but being hurt that other people don't want the hassle is rather ungenerous to me.

After years of awful gifts from sil/bil, I said no more. We’ll just buy for children. When I say children, they’re in their 20’s but still. Still buy for mil/fil, and my parents but my brother and I now only buy each other a good bottle of wine for each other. Saves a lot of hassle and money. I do still buy for my bestie, but she gets me fab pressies so I never want to stop that and I probably stress over her present the most because I want it to be as good as she gets it for me.

We do secret santa.

We did it a few years ago.

It is simply just a case of raising it with everyone in a 'what do you think' and 'how would you feel if' kind of way. We found that when we made the subtle suggestion that everyone responded very favourably in a 'oh thank god for that' kind of way and were really pleased that someone had the sense to raise it and put an end to the endless 'swapping tat' and 'swapping bottles of wine' nonsense that had been going on for years.

Now we just do Christmas gifts for the kids in the family and its so much nicer and way less stressful than scrabbling round trying to think of gifts.

Being together and spending time together is way more special that needless gifts.

When we gather at DH grandma, for several years now, it's been agreed it's just gifts for the kids, i.e. her great grandkids. Oh, and her, as if you're 95, you deserve to be spoilt.

One of DH cousins suggested one year, we all breathed a sigh of relief and have continued like that since

Miserable! A box of Maltesers is a gift. Get something to open. Enjoy!