Really polite way to say no presents for kids [or indeed adults]?

[drspouse]

We usually buy for the following children:
My DCs' godparents' children (two have one each, primary/preschool, and one has 2 DCs, one primary, one early secondary).
My two DNs (teenage).
An old friend's daughter (she's the kind of friend who remembers EVERYONE'S birthday, much more organised than me)
And the following adults:
One godmother (old friend), one couple that are both godparents (family members, have no small children) and my DM and DF.
My DCs are very easily overwhelmed by presents, especially my DS.
And my DM buys for the DCs (and all these people do), usually quite a few bits though she is not offended at all if we keep some bits back.
Coupled with this DS' birthday is before they go back to school so another lot of presents.
I kind of feel like some of the present-buyers (especially the family with two DCs and the one with a preschool child) are just kind of remembering us at the last minute "oops better buy the godchildren some presents, erm, what on earth shall we buy?"

While I can and do keep presents back for a later occasion/another day/regift things that the DCs already have, it just seems a waste - I found some presents from DD's birthday party in May that I'd checked, they weren't things that she needed/were duplicates, so I just left them to be added to the stash of future presents for other DCs' parties, but clearly she didn't miss them!

I would kind of like to say to the givers, don't worry about my DCs this year. But I can't think of a polite way that doesn't sound like "honestly they don't like what you give them" (not true) or "we are holier than thou" or "my children are special snowflakes" (well maybe that's true but it's not a reflection on them or their parenting, just a fact of life that mine get overwhelmed more easily than some!).

For birthdays I tend to do vouchers/cash/something to bake/cinema tickets i.e. not something that hangs around getting in the way.

I'm also keen to cut down on plastic waste and waste in general - we only send Christmas cards to elderly relatives last year and made a donation for everyone else - I'd be fairly happy if nobody sent us one either - thankfully DS' writing is soo poor that even if all the other children in his class (Y2) send them he won't be!

But it was relatively easy to send a Christmas greetings email to those that do email and explain why; asking for "no gifts" seems really presumptuous that they were thinking of sending one anyway!

Sorry that turned into an essay!
TL;DR
What's a polite way to say "we weren't expecting a present, all your presents have been lovely, but don't buy any".

Ask for a single book from each giver? That might soften the message and kid gets something useful. Or just say to the people you want to stop ‘would you mind terribly if we didn’t exchange kids gifts this year, over the years it’s become so many children on my list and I’m sure it’s the same for you. Mine are certainly getting too much. They are so lucky and I know you’re thinking of them even if we don’t exchange gifts’.

Say what you said here about the kids getting overwhelmed with so many presents. That’s fair enough.

I’d suggest instead of doing presents, arranging to meet with the gift givers for lunch or a trip to the cinema/ soft play during the school holidays and actually spending time together rather than exchanging gifts.

Thanks - some good ideas.

The families don't live locally so we won't be meeting up with them (except the one with older children, we could actually see them any time but don't, the primary age child is in the same school as my DCs but they always seem very busy plus our two may be a bit young for theirs to play with now theirs are past the age of soft play etc.)

I'll still buy for my DNs as we are close to them, my DB is crap at gifts but that might be a set we peek at/hide from the DCs.

Because of my DS' awful handwriting, I'm afraid we don't do thank you letters either (plus he has appallingly poor attention and the years we tried were just a battle). We do get them to say thank you on the phone to givers. We've tried pictures, cards with stickers etc. but we ended up one year with half the birthday present givers getting one and half not even though they are in the same class at school and I think everyone was just confused.

How about askimg for experiences for your DC? you could tell them your reasons and explain that tickets/vouchers for the local cinema, bowling alley, zoo ect ect would be greatly recieved. I think people want and enjoy giving gifts so you may need to offer alternatives.

I could definitely ask family for those but I feel really grabby asking friends for something that may well cost more than the gift they were thinking of.
Again, with them not being local, asking for local vouchers means researching them, probably buying them myself etc.

There was a suggestion on a thread a few weeks ago to start a conversation about Christmas and mention how hard the dc are to buy for, that they don’t play with much, or only read books. Would that be an option?

Or could you tell some of these people that you’d like to cut back a bit this Christmas and see if they would agree to not exchange gifts, or agree to a nominal amount, or to just exchange cards.

I wouldn’t email this kind of thing. It needs a phone call or a face to face discussion.

We hardly ever see them! Except the school mum and that's usually just in a massive rush.
I'd much rather agree to meet up but we are all scattered around the country and everyone is either massively busy or we just aren't on their getting-together radar.