That's a picture of some of the gifts my family exchanged last year. I couldn't get all of the gifts to fit in the viewfinder. The commercialization of Christmas in my family is always out of control. We've been buying gifts for relatives that don't even know our names. This year I've said no more. We're drawing names. I'm very excited about it. I think it will give us a chance to focus on getting more personal gifts for the person whose name we draw. Before, all of the gifts' meaning boiled down to making sure that we spent about the same amount of money on everyone and hoping that we could find something that each person would like. That's so hard when you don't see people often enough to know what they already have and what they're into.
We will do some extra gifts. I think everyone will buy for the little kid(s), my parents, and my cousin who lives in the group home. But we won't spend hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of dollars a piece this year.
Anybody else out there draw names? What are your "rules"?
4 comments:
We did a similar thing several years ago for extended family (cousins, etc.) We drew names for the adults, but we all bought for the kids until they graduated HS. Even that was a bit much; I wish we had limited it to a somewhat younger age.
Now, though, most of the kids are all grown. We still all buy something for the kids that remain, but we've pretty much done away with gift giving between the adults.
It's pointless, really... we all have everything we need, and we've finally realized that the biggest thing we have to offer each other is just being there. Trinkets are a waste of money and just take up space.
Once all of the cousins hit 13 we started drawing names. The "grown-ups" draw other grown-ups, and the "kids" draw other kids. My sister is the oldest "kid" at 31, but it still works. As you get older, your gift tends to turn into more of a running joke based on a bad gift from seasons past. It's always entertaining.
My husband's family draws names. All 24 in a pot, adults and kids together. They used to separate it, but the ones who hadn't had kids yet felt left out never getting to buy kid gifts.
My family does not, and I wish they did. I suggested it, but they have not gone for it yet.
We used to draw names, then we just stopped giving gifts all together. Now people want to start randomly giving gifts again, and some people are offended because they didn't get a gift and others did. It's just a big mess that I would rather avoid if I could.
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