This is going to sound so ungrateful, but my wife's family are obsessed with gifts. Each Christmas they buy gifts for us, and one another, but they just buy things that show they reaĺly have no idea about the people we are and waste their money. (They do not ask what we want or need prior to Christmas either.)
I sell or donate most things they buy us, because my house gets so cluttered with "things".
Previously, i have asked to do a Secret Santa with a modest budget in an effort to eliminate the cost and waste at Christmas (but put it much nicer). My wife's parents flat out refused..
We now have a baby, and the second one of the family (our neice or nephew) is due in September 2022 - so i am planning on suggesting that we all just buy for the kids and not each other.
Christmas is not for adults and I am sick of having money wasted buying things for us that we both hate.
Is this the norm for most families? Are you all just buying for the kids or is this the norm, and I'm the weird one?
12 Replies
Once kids came along, we all only bought for the kids.
Our gifts prior to that to eachother (adults) were usually things like a food hamper or a voucher. Nothing overly expensive.
I still buy something small for my parents and my mum always buys something for each family within our family (something she knows they need) but other than that, it’s all about the kids.
I think your Secret Santa idea is a good one if they still don’t like the idea of only buying for the kids.
Or maybe suggest the voucher thing?
Good luck!
Ps- I truly appreciated and love the title you gave your post 🤣
I don’t like to call someone weird, but it’s normal in our family to give gifts to everyone at xmas.
None of us are big consumers and we are t a particularly big family. Sometimes you get something you don’t like (and that can open a door to a hobby or interest).
What does your wife think? Is she ok with you selling the gifts?
The family obviously gets some joy out of giving gifts. Even if they get it wrong. When you marry into a family you go along with that families traditions as long as they aren’t harmful.
Even though it’s the thought that counts, I would prefer the money go to charity or just one family gift. We do end up with so much stuff and it isn’t the meaning of Xmas to me. I would rather nothing. Having said that, I love buying other people gifts. I just get overwhelmed in my home with clutter. You could all do a secret Santa for the family and have a budget.
I could never sell the gifts but I give them to charity or someone who may use them.
I'm from a separated family, so I have 2 sets of parents. Mum's side took a long time to get on board with this. We ended up doing kids and secret Santa for the kids. I think my eldest was about 6 before it happened though
It's different for all families, it's not wrong to buy for everyone and it's not wrong to buy for the kids only. Personally I don't buy for anyone unless they are there Christmas Day. I am not one of those people that has a list of people that I always buy for.
I'm very much on the fence here.
I have been given some gifts that kind of broke my heart because the gifter (usually someone I loved) didn't take my preferences, style or needs into account when buying for me - it made me feel like they had no idea who I was as a person.
I too, would rather not get a thoughtless gift and I'd be really disappointed in myself if my gifts made someone else feel that way.
On the other hand though, my family are gift givers. We enjoy it and it's a big part of our Christmas traditions, I can't see any of us being impressed if someone's partner came in and basically asked us to stop doing it.
You can choose not to participate but you can't really expect the whole family to stop buying for each other. Your wife probably needs to be honest about the gifts as well if she also hates them. She may need to give them a gentle nudge in the right direction!
A couple of years ago I was over trying to choose presents for the adults in my family. So I put out a group message to my siblings, their partners and my parents. Do we continue buying for everyone as we normally do? Do we buy for kids only (eldest four are all teenagers, youngest at the time wasn’t yet one)? Do we buy for the kids and make a donation on behalf of the adults? Or did they have another suggestion. We ended up going with donations for the adults and buying for the kids, with a preference for experiences rather than items that most likely wouldn’t get used.
I 100% agree with you. I have a huge family and we used to do this, and then everyone got partners and kids and it got even bigger and trying to buy for everyone got out of control. I was receiving gifts that the giver had bought me for the sake of it which I never used, and I felt bad that they had wasted their money. After a few years of pushback most of us finally agreed to just buy for the kids (which is still a mission in itself!) but one refuses to stop. We just told her we aren’t doing it anymore and there is absolutely no expectation for her to keep going but she still chooses to buy for everyone 🤷🏻♀️
If not everyone is on board it’s going to be difficult to change their attitudes. Does your wife agree with you? If you think it won’t cause too much grief then you could set the boundary early and say you are only buying for the kids this year (maybe due to budget, reducing clutter etc) and could everyone else please do the same for you. Everyone else can still buy for everyone if they want. It depends how this may be received though, it could cause more drama than it’s worth.
I regift most of ours to lol legit have a present cupboard for unwanted gifts. My kids think it’s great, I sell some to, ours give the weirdest things to my teen, like smiggle gifts cards, so I regift, why waste it?
Our parents buy us things but usually ask what we want/need. And aunts and uncles only buy for the kids.
Maybe start telling them what you want. Vouchers to a spa for example.
They obviously enjoy buying you both gifts. I'd just let it go and roll with it.
We do secret Santa every couples names go into a hat and every couple picks out a name of another couple we then have a $100 limit to buy for them it’s turned out way better because we now all buy experiences or dinner vouchers etc my husband and I really look forward to it each year because we know we’re going to get and adult night away from the kids lately we have bought the same thing we all decide on a place or experience and we all go together without the kids for example we did a ghost tour last year and the year before we did a dinner cruise it’s so much better than unwanted gifts.