Does anyone else like exchanging adult Christmas presents

[Nameinspirationneeded]

prompted by seeing more threads about how pointless and wasteful it is. Presents should be children only, at most maybe secret Santa.

Maybe because I’m in a small family so it’s practical. I exchange with my parents and some close friends. Just reading the other threads I feel grabby. I like feeling thought of, and spending time thinking what others would like, but wouldn’t probably treat themselves to.

im absolutely fine with others deciding they don’t want to and I’d stop and don’t feel offended.

We only have ourselves, 5 adult children including spouses, my dad and sister. We only have 6 children to buy for so it would be a pathetic Christmas idea if we didn't do adult pressies.

We are DH, me, two adult kids and their partners = 6.
We all buy for each other.
Everyone ends up with around 4-6 things to open. Some practical things (eg ski gloves). Some ‘nice’ things (eg lovely cook book). Some indulgent things (eg posh body lotion). It’s lovely.

I do think some of these 'practical' gifts are quite dull. I may need new tea towels but I don't appreciate someone giving them me as a present. I'll buy my own in a design I prefer. A gift should be personal, thoughtful, joyful or what's the point?

Yes, I love it. I love giving presents to adult DC, DH and my DSis, that I know they want but might not get for themselves. I am very practical about it and ask for wish lists. I hate wasting money on things people don't want.

I never buy myself luxury brands of bath oil and shower gel or huge flowering houseplants, so I love an excuse to receive them.

Meeeee! I enjoy buying and receiving gifts. Luckily I have some really thoughtful people in my life who buy or make me lovely gifts that I may not even think to have for myself. Yes occasionally I get something that isn't really me from someone but they just end up at the PTA summer fete or similar and are gratefully received so no loss.

What on earth does he buy you? Dh insists on getting me a surprise, despite me telling him I hate surprises and TBH most of them are hit and miss, but thought has gone into them. And occasionally they are just right which is lovely.

I love exchanging gifts with my small family 😍

I do with close friends and luckily they love christmas as much as I do. Funnily enough this means more than some of the family ones.

I didn't realise I found it stressful until we stopped and found it was really peaceful not doing adult presents. You do you though - if you enjoy it, why not?

We don’t do adult presents at all. Nobody misses it in the slightest.

Over time we’ve dropped enough hints to people to encourage them to stop too.

We’ll buy some for DS who is still very young but that’s about it. Any other gifting or receiving would feel totally pointless.

I love it!

I buy for:
My parents
Brother and his partner
My elderly cousin
My other cousin''s grown up daughters
Work colleagues
My two closest female friends
My male friend from childhood
My daughter's dad
Whatever men are in my life at the time, if it's serious enough (I'm currently happily and non-exclusively dating two, who both know about each othern, and both of whom I am close enough to to warrant gift exchange.)

Not one of these "gifting responsibilities" brings me anything but joy!

In terms of kids, I buy for:
My daughter
One friend'a younger son
Other friend's baby grandson
The kids I work with.

I couldn't give that much of a toss who, out of all of these people, gives me stuff back. But I DO like recieving gifts, so anything I get I will treasure!

Bit sick of the whole "stop buying for adults! Who wants their house filled with more crap?" brigade.

ME! I want my house filled with more crap! If it's loving crap someone I love has picked out for me personally, and given with love - why the fuck wouldn't I want it? Whether a comestible or indeed an object somebody who knows me well, thinks I would like. As I am in now way deeply mysterious or hard to fathom, chances are they are right about that!

Be it chocolate, socks, a weird ornament, or the much underrated Bayliss and Harding gift set (a lot of which smells perfectly nice to me, and the bottles are pretty, and it's not as if my skin is so delicate it will corrode at the first touch of anything under £30 a bottle.... )

I say, BRING IT ON. Second hand gifts welcome - I do indeed care about the environment, and often buy second hand myself...

But Christmas is a time if there ever was one to show our love for each other, surely. And picking out, buying and wrapping something we think another person will love - that's a pretty loving act, surely? It is to me.

Sorry for the rant! I nearly lost my beloved friend a couple of nights ago, in part because she feels unloved. So ways to show love are first and foremost in my mind at the moment. If love comes to me in the form of a Bayliss and Harding gift set, fuck me, I am still taking that!

Your friend

Love it, but only buy for family. - including grandparents (that's me now), aunts, uncles and adult nieces/nephews as well as my adult children. Everyone exchanges gifts. Sadly as I am getting older I no longer have my mum or elderly aunts to buy for.

I really try to avoid buying tat though. Most gifts I buy are either nice food or plants, things like saucepans, cookbooks, scarves, rucksacks, posh moisturisers.

my dc are adults
i have a small family
so yes we exchange presents

Me and DH try to buy each other something useful normally, not very festive but practical. We also have a Secret Santa tradition in our friend circle and it also goes without saying that gifts are kept in the practical side. Sometimes I participate in Secret Santa exhange at work where we have a set budget and normally get each other something like candles or chocolates, so again, nice yet useful. Distant relatives usually get either a smartshow 3d video or nothing at all, depending on whether we keep in touch.

Nothing useful or practical over here! It’s Christmas FFS, we want fun things!

We do. We buy for everyone in the family. Mostly it’s gift vouchers for lovely restaurants they probably wouldn’t go to without a voucher and then a small box of chocolates to go with it. I love wrapping them up. It’s not a waste of money for me at all

Totally respect that some people don’t want to participate in gift giving, neither way is the right way, just do what you want to do.

I have continued buying for many of the friends who now buy for kids. Love exchanging with my parents and sisters. It's often books.
I have told DH what I want this year - a small piece of jewellery I've shown him.

When I saw the thread title, I thought this was going to be about sex toys 😂 - just shows where my mind is.

If I didn't exchange gifts with adults, I'd be fucked as I only know a few small children these days and to be honest I don't recall my small children ever getting me gifts when they were little, so it was really just me giving them gifts, rather than it being an actual exchange.

🤣

I like buying for adults as well as kids.
Its part of Christmas
My family all make up an Amazon wish list each and anyone who wants to buy something from it can..
It means everyone gets things they actually want
Normally the price ranges from about £5 to £20 so suits every budget

We are a 3 adult household and we get each other gifts

I also buy for four adult friends

Im very lucky as our town is full of little independent traders and there is such a variety of lovely wee gifts to treat someone , without having to blow the budget. Also because we are so rural we dont get to the cities very often so arent bombarded with choice . I go into town and spend an afternoon and that's it - Christmas shopping all done

I put a lot of thought into gifts, I think about the person, their lifestyle, their hobbies . I dont spend a lot of money , sometimes its only a fiver

I like getting socks for Christmas - posh socks - not the utility 5 packs I buy for myself. I love a pair of Christmas socks or novelty ones , a pair of socks for Christmas makes me very happy :)

And this year Im excited to gift sloe gin. Right now the bottles are in the dishwasher being sterilised and Im working on making pretty gift tags for the bottles . Its giving me a lot of joy being able to give something home made :)

I don't have a problem with adult Christmas present buying. In my family we tend to exchange wishlists and everyone gets things they like and want. You could argue that it's pointless because we could all buy ourselves the things, but I disagree. I think it's nice exchanging gifts! Nobody buys tat. There's almost always an element of personal choice for the buyer (choosing the specific jumper / toiletries / earrimgs etc) so it's not just transactional.

I like choosing gifts for my adult children and their husbands as well as my own parents. It's also nice for children to choose or make gifts for their parents and grandparents.