To suggest to friends of ours that we do secret santa between us this year...

[insertwittynicknameHERE]

DH thinks I am. TBH we could stretch if we had to, but it would mean cutting back on our food shopping even more than we are for xmas (not xmas food shopping, our weekly shop).

Anyway I have text friends to see if this is okay with them, they said yes and it suits them as well,. Also I don't think it is fair on them as we have 2 DD's and they are due their first DC next year. I have told them not to feel like they have to buy the kids anything either as they get loads anyway and we can just so pressies between the 4 of us.

Next year I was going to suggest only buying the DC and spending a set amount, not double in our case, so for example we spend £10-15 on their DC and they spend £10-15 on our two altogether IYSWIM.

DH thinks I am being a big meanie though, so what do you think AIBU?

Blimey I think that's a lot anyway to be honest!

We've got a group of good friends and between us (5 couples) we've got about 16 children

So we all agreed not to buy the children Christmas presents as it's too much, but that we would do children's birthday presents.

We also do a secret santa for the grown ups - so each grown up gets 1 present with a £10 limit.

It's crazy to spend tons of money on friends' children when we know they all get loads of presents from family.

yanbu

agree mad to spend lots of other peoples children at christmas, esp as generally get lots of pressies from familys

much better to get a birthday pressie

my close friends and I do a ss - much better to buy one nice pressie for £15/20 instead of 6 silly/small pressies

We always do Secret Santas for the kids from our antenatal group. It worked well at Christmas and well for their birthdays, so there is no way we will change this system! Some people end up a bit luckier with their SS than others (imagination, access to cool stuff), but at the end of the day, it's not a major present, so any disappointment shouldn't be too enormous!

We also set a limit of how much can be spent on the present, so as to correct for the differences in families' incomes...

It's a fair system, and saves lots of time as well as money! Don't let anyone say it's mean.

Very sensible. YANBU. I am sure you'll want to buy something for their newborn, but very wise in terms of Christmas.

YANBU. We do the same with our NCT antenatal class and now 3 of us have a second baby we do a ss between the 3 babies too. With our other friends last years we did kids ss and those of us with 2 kids picked 2 names out of the hat. We don't do grown up pressies - never have.