Oh my gosh I so totally agree!! When I was a child, my parents didn't get anything for Christmas except maybe the odd occasional token bottle of bubble bath or pair of socks from their own parents. So I was expecting the presents to stop at some point when I turned 18, but they never stopped, and then I had to start joining in, buying presents for the 10 family members who bought me presents, even though I was a student and could barely afford a budget of £10 per person.
The moment I realised how utterly futile it was, was as a student, when I'd taken the train to spend Christmas at my grandparents' house, and as I was leaving I couldn't fit all my presents in my suitcase so I asked to leave them in their spare room and collect them at a later date. Except that later date never came because I still didn't have a car, and the following year I spent Christmas with the other side of the family, and then the year after that I went back to my paternal grandparents and the exact same thing happened, too many presents to take home on the train, and as I went to stash my new presents in the cupboard, I rediscovered all my presents from two years previously. Which showed how utterly, utterly pointless it all was.
There are also a few people in my family who pride themselves on being "really good at buying presents for people" when actually they aren't at all.
There have been several times in my life where I have felt like I am DROWNING in the absolute TAT people inundate me with for Christmas. And I sound ungrateful - yes, I'm bloody ungrateful. I am not one single bit grateful for being inundated with RUBBISH, just because it satisfies other people's shopping addiction.
Frustratingly, there have been a few times when I've agreed with my mum that we won't do presents for the adults, or just agreed to a token £5 spend, but after a couple of years she usually unilaterally renegues on it, which is frustrating as well as embarrassing.
Two years ago, I realised that not one single jumper I owned was one I had chosen for myself. They were all gifts, except that none of them were actually to my taste (I just wore them because "they'll do"), so I was going around all winter wearing stuff I didn't really like. I don't have a lot of spare cash, so it just feels SO BLOODY SILLY spending it on something that I don't know if the other person will really like (and I'm unlikely to find out if they really like it), and getting something I'm not overly keen on in return, when we could each keep our cash and treat ourselves to something we actually really want!
And then there's the soul-destroying ritual of traipsing around shops in the rain trying to guess what another adult might like, when I find it hard enough to pin down something that I would like!!
And when I think of the environmental impact of all the shit that ends up in landfill because no one really even wanted it in the first place, it just breaks my heart. It actually really makes me angry.
Buying annual Christmas presents for children makes sense, because they grow and change every year. But adults... I asked my DH for socks and gin last year... now he's asking me what I want this year, but the socks from last year are still growing strong and I haven't finished the gin.