How many people to buy for, how much do you spend for Christmas?

[QuintsBombWithAWiew]

There has always been a tradition that we buy for dhs family. His aunt, uncle, cousins. His brother and dp and their kids. It is not reciprocated. Our children may get some boxes of maltesers or other sweets. We are not in very regular contact with them. It is me having the task of selecting and buying all the presents, ds job is moaning about money spent.

As for my own family, I buy for people I am close to, and that I am in regular contact with, and it is all reciprocal.

Dh feels because we are much better off than his family, we should buy presents for them.

I dont want to keep doing this. It is 8-10 presents extra to buy for people we see once or twice a year. I also think that if they wanted to exchange presents with us they would make an effort.

I have around 50 presents to buy, including presents from my dad to all his home nurses and also his family and friends.

Am I mean to just strip down to only buying presents for my nieces and nephews and leave the adults out?

I buy for my immediate family - mum, dad, 2 sisters, sisters partner and nephew.

I also buy for my cousins 2 girls because we're close, 5 children spread out between my very close friends, my best friend and an Auntie who has always been very good to me.

I Dd usually buys a little something for her best friend at school too.

So all in, I buy for 16 people.

I also buy a family gift for a couple of friends (nice tin of biscuits and a bottle of wine) and budget another £20 for those.

Budget this year was around the £350 mark including postage costs and all wrapping paper/cards, etc. So far, I'm well under budget

We have a rule between extended family and friends here that as soon as children are in the picture, presents go down to just the children. My mum was one of 5 and all my aunties and uncles had 3 children. I've lost count of my cousins/second cousins on both sides because there are too many The family is far too big to buy for everyone. In my extended family I only buy for my cousins girls. It would just spiral out of control otherwise.

If you want to reduce gift buying for your in-laws, do it by stealth this year & then reduce it further next year. Buy family gifts rather than individual gifts so a board game, food hamper you have made up yourself with stuff from Aldi etc.

M&S have got their fancy biscuit tins on offer for five pounds. These would make ideal token gifts.
This will work out cheaper than buying individual gifts for everybody.

That's ridiculous, I wouldn't be buying for distant relatives I don't see. Refuse. Do they even thank you ?
I buy for 20, including dc, dh, the rest are close family/friends. There are also an extra 10 I'm buying very small presents for. These include teachers, Brownie leaders etc.

I've had a cull over the past couple of years. My new rules are that when nieces/nephews start work, token present only. I'm also telling everyone that now DS is working, he should only get token presents - he's not loving me at the moment!

I'm also contemplating culling those who rarely have the courtesy to say 'thank you'.

3 people.
About £1000.

20 people, total xmas (including food and theatre tickets) budget £1500

27 people, plus a couple of teachers and the odd "tenner in an envelope" for our cleaner, hairdresser etc. It's been culled of a few grown-ups, by agreement, in the past but we have a dozen nephews and nieces, and three god-sons, and I can envisage a couple more baby niblings forthcoming. I'm hoping none if the adults drop off because that would be, erm, "natural wastage", so to speak...

Budget is whatever it costs really. I suppose £20 for kids, £15 to £40 for adults depending on closeness etc. About £100 each for our DC and the same for DH

We're a very small family and we don't spend that much on Christmas. We buy for about 15 people which includes family and friends. Out of the 15, about half of them will get joint presents.

I do a combination of handmade and bought gifts.

I dont buy many extras for the Christmas meal; I am cooking a big beef Wellington with all the normal roast trimmings with Xmas pudding for desert. We dont really drink so we wont be buying much alcohol.

I suppose I might spend an extra couple of hundred over what I would normally spend in December.

We buy for our parents, 4 siblings, 7 grandparents. £5 present limit for everyone. Family rules. So £75. Plus two nieces, around £10 each.

I have a 7yo dd and 3yo ds No more than £20-£30 per child.

We buy for our DD's, each other and PIL we have no nieces or nephews yet. Siblings we spend around £10 on each.
PIL £30 tops.
Each other around £50
DD's around £200 each.

I spoke to my dh. He has agreed to cull the adults. We will just get his aunt and uncle a bottle of wine, same with his brother and dp, and a present for their children.

Spending so much on so many is madness.

We buy for...

dps both sets
dhs gran and grandad
dhs 2 sisters
nephew
my brother

The above total about £350

3dds we've spent £1850
And dh and I bought our 2nd British bulldog puppy as our gift at £2250

Eye watering when I've written that down still to buy food/drink and decorations, xmas eve hamper and stockings

Leaving aside DDs and DH I buy 17 gifts - these are immediate family (our parents, siblings & partners and nieces/nephews. Plus one secret santa present for my girlfreinds and 3 teacher/lollipop lady type gifts.

There's no way I'd be buying for distant relatives or ones we never see. It's pointless (and I can't afford it!).

We buy for immediate family, so parents, siblings and their partners, nephews and nieces- that's 12 (at around £30-40 each), then 6 other children (best mates and cousins kids-around £10-15 each), then a few bottles of wine/tins of biscuits for aunts and uncles and a couple of people who work for OH. All in all probably around £450......but that's before DS who's 10 months and we're going to spend God knows how much on him.
We go to my sisters for Christmas and usually chip in wine, puddings and cheeses and we host OH siblings for new year and some years that's topped £250
50 presents is loads, you have my sympathies and in your position I'd be trying to cut that waaaaayyy back.

Not including myself DH or my 3DC

We buy for 29 people and 10 animals

5 Nieces
3 Nephews
2 Sister In Laws (DH's sisters)
3 Brother In Laws
Mother In Law
Farther In Law
My Dad
Step Mum
Mum
Step Dad
Sister
Brother
Uncle
Auntie
2 Cousins
2 Cousins partners
Grandmother
Grandfather

8 Dogs
2 Cats

We tend to set a budget. For example £200. That budget then gets devided between everyone. Not everyone gets the same amount spent on them, some get more some get less, as long as we only spend what our budget allows.
We only ever buy something for someone if they are also buying something for us.

I buy for:

DP
My parents
SIL
My teenage cousin
Cousins children x 5
Friends children x 4

Our own DCs obviously and then tree decorations for 2 teachers and 2 teaching assistants.

Oh, and I have no idea how much I spend.

I buy for 50. I budget €1,900 for all those at the start of the year - but I shop the sales and find things good for the person throughout the year, and make things at home too, rather than aiming to spend the entire budget in the last few weeks of panic. So last year, for example, my budget was exactly €2k, but I spent almost €400 less than that. And that was a bad crafting year too.

This year, I still have quite a few to go, and a couple of those may go over budget, but I am already almost €500 down on the original budget based on those already finished. And I have a chance still for a few crafty things to get done.

Sorry, that 50 is made up of:

DH (from me and from DD)
DD (from Santa, from DH & I, and for her Boxing Day birthday)
My DPs, 5 siblings, 3 significant others, 3 Nieces & Nephews
PILs, DH's 2 siblings, 2 significant others, 3 nieces & nephews
Between us - 13 aunts and uncles (some couple presents, some individual)
3 DCousins who are still children, and 2 teenage StepCousins
Teacher, classroom assistant (money into class collection)
Resource teacher
Afterschool club minders
(And there was an au pair, but no longer).

We used to do a secret santa at work that I didn't include, but I've changed within the Department so I don't know what the arrangements are.

DH does buy some of those (and of course, from him to me, and from DD to me). But I work on it from January to be organized enough so I do spend the bulk of the money. But it is spread out through the year so manageable, and it is within our family means as well. I could cut it a LOT more if I needed to.

We buy for our parents, our siblings and their partners and children, certain close friends and their children, plus DH's grandma and my great aunt.

In all it works out at I think 20 adults and 12 children. Plus our own two children - I will prob spend about £75 on each.

I try to spend between £5 and £10 on children and partners, will spend a bit more on parents and siblings, say £10-£15 some adults will just get a bottle of wine/box of chocolates per couple. It still adds up though.

For a few families in the slightly wider circle, I have a couple of times done either a board game suited to the ages involved or a good DVD for their tastes, along with a festive drink (a nice mineral for kids and bottle of wine for parents), bag of popcorn to pop, big bowl to hold it all (and for popcorn later) and (once) nice chocs to round it out. That has always gone down well.

I certainly don't buy for people we don't see and don't "feel" close to (there are a few more aunts and uncles that we don't buy for, most get a card but a few not even that) - but our families are reasonably physically scattered so its not about how often we see them but the quality of the relationship.

We buy for parents, siblings(couple gifts if they have a partner), nieces and nephews. So 14 people in total. Some years we have extended family members joining us on Christmas Day, and we'll get token gifts for them, but we wouldn't buy for them if we didn't see them. We both have a load of aunts/uncles/cousins scattered across the globe, and it's never crossed my mind to buy for them. I don't even have addresses for most of them! I also buy gifts for school staff, always chocolates.

I buy 3 presents and I spend under £50.

I buy for 32 people. DH has a large family so among his siblings, BILs and SILs who live in the UK we do a Secret Santa - everyone buys one present and receives one present, budget 20. We still do small presents for all the nieces and nephews and for his mum and dad. Among my family, we do a Secret Santa with a budget of 10. That still leaves grandparents and aunts and uncles who come to stay for Christmas every year.

I thought I was nearly finished buying everything in October but then added up what was left and still have a lot to do. All the small stuff adds up so quickly and I haven't bought DH, DD or DS their presents yet. So budget probably 450 for everything. That's a lot more than I'd thought really.

We buy for our DS and each other. We do kris kindle for the adults on both sides, so I buy one present for someone on my side and on his and DH does likewise. Then we buy for our 3 nephews, my grandmother, a younger cousin (much younger than the rest of us) and my DH's godchild and her sister.

I also buy a present for my two closest friends.

All in all I'd say the spend is £400-500 but I think I'll keep a closer eye this year and see exactly what it works out as....