What have you done to reduce gift giving?

[KidsHappen]

This year I issued a blanket email to the entire family suggesting that since we were all suffering from limited funds that perhaps we go lite on the gift giving by: doing the White Elephant exchange since we enjoyed it so much, each person only giving a single gift to every other person and we all contribute to getting pictures done as the family gift. Furthermore, that we try to make the single gift to each other something cheap but creative, perhaps something handmade, found at a thrift store, something they already own that they know the other person would really like or if bought at least just a trinket that they know the person would like. This was well received and relieved a lot of pressure and stress. This allowed some people to simply say, all I can afford is the white elephant and contribution to family pictures. I am hoping we can do even better next year and as the years go on and the kids get older we can transition to shifting away from gift giving so much and just keeping the family traditions that don't cost so much.

 

Is anyone else trying to reduce the gift giving and if so how?

[Nakia]

Great ideas there! We have only exchanged gifts with our immediate family for several years now. This year we are only buying gifts for the children. I did order everyone a nice portrait of my girls (I am a photographer so I just had to pay for the prints). I love not having to buy 20-30 gifts for people.

 

Last year another homeschool mom gave me a great idea. She is the mother of seven, and every year their kids draw names, and the parents let them go to a local thrift store and spend $5 on the sibling whose name they drew. They seems like a pretty good idea to me. I might take my girls this week to do that.

 

ETA: My best friend and I decided several years ago not to buy gifts for each other's children. We take them somewhere special. This year we are thinking of taking them to see The Princess and the Frog and then out to eat at a special restaurant.

Edited December 13, 2009 by Nakia

[MariannNOVA]

but a few years ago, I simply told folks that in lieu of buying gifts for the kids or for DH and me, it would be fine with us if they made a contribution to their best-loved charity or to their Church, and we certainly hoped they understood that we would be doing the same. Our decision was based not so much on financial circumstances as it was based on lack of time, lack of energy, and general dis-satisfaction with the way that the gift giving was seeming so 'rote.'

 

Very simply -- we give to our grand-daughters, my younger married daughter and her husband who do not have children (and who have a great financial burden with my daughter's illness) and our own children.

 

I buy small things for the kids choir director, handbell director, our milkman.

 

Basically, we decided that we would stop the 'obligatory' gift giving, i.e., you are giving pajamas to my kids, I'll give pajamas to yours.

 

I send flowers to my inlaws and my mom for birthdays and at Thanksgiving -- at Christmas, if something strikes my fancy, I will buy it for whomever --but right now, I'm annoyed at my in laws, so that's not going to happen.

Edited December 14, 2009 by MariannNOVA

[Murphy101]

sometimes I just want to scream "Stop the insanity!!":D

 

seriously, the easiest way to reduce gift giving is to - not give a gift.

 

it's truely that simple.

 

to those who feel they "have to", please read the threads about the billions of gifts that are thrown away, or the thread on donation in lieu, or many other threads.

 

If you just can't do that...

 

limit to 1 gift per child.

 

or to make it even fewer gifts, make it a family gift.

 

for example, instead of pulling individual names from a hat, pull out a head of household name and buy 1 gift for that family. a boardgame or a movie maybe. This is what I will suggest to my children when they are grown.

 

really though the gift that matters is your time and actually presence with family during the holiday. I'd rather they buy no gifts at all and be together for the holiday than anything else.

 

It's not that I don't appreciate the heart behind or in the gift.

It's just that I honestly do not care about gifts themselves.

And shoudl I be blessed to have funds and find something I think someone would enjoy or need, I don't wait for christmas to give it. Or anything else for that matter. If I can - I do. If I can't, I love them anyways and presume that's enough.:)

[lgm]

We tried what you did, but it didn't work. So, we bowed out of the extended family giving except for kids/g'ma/g'pa.

(We give the neices/nephews g.c.'s to the movies and the g.p's supplies and labor for something they need on their home.) We were honest and said we were running ourselves ragged and the whole post-Thanksgiving experience was not enjoyable. We invited everyone to come to our children's Christmas Concerts with their respective musical groups. G'parents did and now we look forward to the concert and dessert at our place afterwards. It's created a nice bond between our children and their g'parents. About 3 years later, everyone else except g'parents decided they wanted to bow out of gift giving too. There was some friction going on in wildly uneven exchanges and cutting out the whole deal was a good way to solve it.

[Guest janainaz]

I REALLY wish I had not done big gift-giving to my kids at Christmas from the time they were little. I wish I had done a five gift limit, a $100 limit, some limit that would never cause me to stress. We've always had the big ordeal Christmas morning. I never put out any gifts until Christmas eve while they are sleeping. When they wake up and walk in - it's really a lot. Too much.

 

It's not my kids that expect it, it's the idea that I have in my mind of them being excited. They don't care. My ds9.75 can't even come up with stuff to put on his list. My younger one would not notice if he had three things. It's me. I would tell any young mom to make it small and special. I love to do Santa, but why could it not have been one gift that they really wanted?

 

As for family, it used to really bother me if we could not buy for everyone. It was a pride thing. I have fully embraced that we can't buy for everyone. I also ask them to not worry about buying us a gift. In fact, I just ask them to please NOT. If they do, fine, but I no longer feel guilty for not reciprocating the gesture.

 

This was the very first year I felt totally unexcited and blah about buying gifts for my kids. We are getting a Wii and it was the only thing I could think of that would be worth our while. I usually get a thrill out of shopping carefully, thinking about what they'd like, setting a budget and the whole thing. I finally realized that even with my best efforts, most of what I buy ends up on the shelf or in the toybox.

 

This year I am keeping it to a minimum. I am going to start doing a family gift and a few things each from now on.

 

We have some young friends who we love dearly and they have three kids, and are struggling while the husband goes to college. They have two cute little girls and a little boy - all under 4 yrs. I think my boys would find so much joy in shopping for them and spending our money to light up someone else's eyes. Now I need to just do it and adopt a new plan.

[sandellie4]

What a nice post. :grouphug:

 

Sandy

 

I REALLY wish I had not done big gift-giving to my kids at Christmas from the time they were little. I wish I had done a five gift limit, a $100 limit, some limit that would never cause me to stress. We've always had the big ordeal Christmas morning. I never put out any gifts until Christmas eve while they are sleeping. When they wake up and walk in - it's really a lot. Too much.

 

It's not my kids that expect it, it's the idea that I have in my mind of them being excited. They don't care. My ds9.75 can't even come up with stuff to put on his list. My younger one would not notice if he had three things. It's me. I would tell any young mom to make it small and special. I love to do Santa, but why could it not have been one gift that they really wanted?

 

As for family, it used to really bother me if we could not buy for everyone. It was a pride thing. I have fully embraced that we can't buy for everyone. I also ask them to not worry about buying us a gift. In fact, I just ask them to please NOT. If they do, fine, but I no longer feel guilty for not reciprocating the gesture.

 

This was the very first year I felt totally unexcited and blah about buying gifts for my kids. We are getting a Wii and it was the only thing I could think of that would be worth our while. I usually get a thrill out of shopping carefully, thinking about what they'd like, setting a budget and the whole thing. I finally realized that even with my best efforts, most of what I buy ends up on the shelf or in the toybox.

 

This year I am keeping it to a minimum. I am going to start doing a family gift and a few things each from now on.

 

We have some young friends who we love dearly and they have three kids, and are struggling while the husband goes to college. They have two cute little girls and a little boy - all under 4 yrs. I think my boys would find so much joy in shopping for them and spending our money to light up someone else's eyes. Now I need to just do it and adopt a new plan.

[KidsHappen]

My ds9.75 can't even come up with stuff to put on his list.

 

My 10 year old didn't list a single thing either and the 13 year old only wanted a pair of Uggs. She just found out early today that they are made from sheep skin so I am not sure if she even still wants that. The 18 year old said just put money in my savings account and the 16 year old only asked for books. They all got PJs and books and then I tried to come up with a single item special to each one. I had to get creative.

[Sherry in OH]

Because Santa is really a group of woman known collectively as Grandmothers, and because the members of this group do not believe parents when they say that one gift per child would be sufficient -

 

Each of our children receive three gifts from mommy and daddy, the contents of their stockings, and one gift from siblings.

 

My sisters and I buy for each other's children. We stopped buying gifts for each other years ago. It seemed silly to exchange gift cards. I would love to do the same on husband's side of the family. MIL insists on at least exchanging names.