Hundreds of wasted pounds

[Pinkpinot]

I love Christmas
I love my family
But presents I buy just get wasted
Last year we bought some carefully thought out lunches/pamper day/ wine tasting
All of the offers expired
I found a bag, 6 months later, of little things that I had given my cousins in my mums. Been there since Christmas

I feel like I don't want to bother

We only buy for children. They get nicer gifts that way that they appreciate. In my opinion there is very little that most adults need or want that they can't afford to get themselves.
Money is tight for nearly everyone at the moment. If you really want to get them something I would suggest supermarket vouchers. Everyone has to food shop and tesco, etc vouchers would either take the pressure off finances on January or give them the chance to buy something more expensive they wouldn't usually. Also if was tesco or Asda there is also plenty of non food options. Can guarantee those type of vouchers would be used by anyone.

I agree that if they have said to only buy for the children, then only buy for the children. We have family who insist on buying us stuff that they think we would like, that actually we don't and it goes straight to charity. However if they were to buy me vouchers for the supermarket or a shop that I do use, or a voucher for the massage therapist that I use regularly (not the one you think I should use, but my usual therapist) then I would use the vouchers and be grateful.

noone I know buys anything much for adult family so I don't know if it is the norm really. Just what shops want us to think

Some people might feel that an experience or voucher for a particular thing is actually just pressuring them. I had one like that which I now feel guilty about not using. It was a really lovely thought - they'd bought me a flickr membership thing. I can see why as I was a new mum and obviously taking heaps of photos of my gorgeous DD... But the fact is I just had no headspace for getting around a new way of sharing photos and stuff, I had pretty horrendous PND and actually just wanted to curl up and hide take photos and store them on my laptop, not upload them etc.

Vouchers that were for particular places wouldn't do well with me either as we don't drive so any of them (so many things I've looked at are in the middle of nowhere) would just create extra stress for me no matter how fun the experience was. I am being assessed for AS and OCD though, so I know this isn't a typical reaction - but I really struggle with being 'obligated' to do things (which is basically what something like a spa voucher would feel like because it is saying "do this thing").

As I say, I'm not suggesting everyone feels like this, but just offering a different perspective. I really did appreciate the present mentioned above but the fact is it was totally wrong for me at that time. Wish I'd felt able to say something at the time :(