To want family members to choose their own gifts for DCs

[ItsVeryHyacinthBucket]

Each and every year, Christmas and birthday, I get a round of texts from everyone in my family (my side and in laws) asking what my (two primary aged) kids want to get. I used to respond with 'DC1 likes fairies and cars, DC2 likes art and unicorns' type thing but increasingly, family have asked for web links to be sent for a specific item.

For the last couple of years, relatives have expected me to either choose a specific thing and send them a link so they can send it (I then have to giftwrap it) or they send me money and I have to choose, buy and wrap.

I don't want to sound ungrateful because of course, this is generous - but the end result is that not one family member actually chooses and wraps their own gift for my kids. I basically have to decide every single present that each DC will get, from everyone they know, and wrap them all up 'from' Granny or Aunty So-and-so. It sucks the soul out of the festive giving for me - it feels like we may as well just send our money direct to Amazon. Zero magic.

This year, I don't want to do this. SIL has already been asking me for links to 'what my kids want'. I have told her they would be happy with anything. She asked again, what do they want. AIBU to say I'm thankful for the offer but am happy to let her choose this year, and if she doesn't want to, then just to leave it? I'd say the same thing to anyone else who asks.

TL/DR: I don't want to orchestrate Christmas for my family by choosing every single present on behalf of my relatives. WIBU to tell them to choose their own this year. And if so, how do I put it?

And vice versa

That's a brilliant idea!

@CarlaH your tone comes across very abrupt and rude, are you aware of that? My posts are about wishing relatives would get more involved and creative in gifting. Not sure if you've quite understood that.

Love this! Might try it this year...would just hope SIL doesn't lose the paperwork 😥

I'm late to this thread but it's like therapy! December is SO busy and no matter how organised I am with my own to do list, I end up taking on the admin and mental load for others, with no acknowledgement.

My family and friends will either buy something fairly safe like pyjamas or they'll call me and say 'I was thinking about X, what do you think? Do they have it already?'. The most I have to do is have a nice chat and then the presents come to us wrapped ready for Christmas. And there's some thought and effort involved.

My in laws are another story. They request an amazon list (which I've had to curate and keep up to date) and every single time, they buy the first thing on the list, regardless of price etc. They send it directly to us and I'm expected to wrap it. One adult has spent approx 30 seconds buying a gift and if that's all the thought they can spare for my children, I'd rather they hadn't bothered. And of course the children are expected to give effusive thanks (which they always would but it really grates on me!)

We've also had email gift vouchers sent late on Christmas Eve because they hadn't bought anything. Even when the children were toddlers and had no idea what a voucher is.

My children are so easy going. Even if they got duplicates, they are delighted that they have spares. They don't ask for anything either, their letter to Santa typically has one or 2 small things on it. Which means all the thought to curate the gift lists has to come from me! I'm so sad that close family members have so little interest in them.