Yes, it’s August and the temperatures are in the '80s, but I’m asking you to think ahead to a mere 20 weeks from now…
I need help reinventing the Christmas gift-giving thing with my siblings. Here’s the deal. There are five of us, with me being the youngest at 47 and a brother the oldest at 67. And there are four spouses-in-law.
We’ve always had these “everyone gets a gift from everyone else” kind of Christmases, but since my oldest brother moved closer and has a fixed income, that needs to change.
I wish I could come up with a more interesting alternative than drawing names. Or a way to make drawing names more interesting – a theme, perhaps?
For it to work for us, I think it needs to be home-based (i.e., not splurging on a restaurant meal as an alternative to giving gifts).
We draw names, and put a dollar limit on the gifts we can get each other. My parents usually also adopt a family through church, and we’re all invited to go nuts with the gift-giving there.
I realize that name-drawing isn’t that interesting. In my family this year, I suggested a white elephant instead but was shouted down. I still think that could be fun.
I’m the youngest of six at 35, so I know where you’re coming from!
Do you all have a big get-together with dinner and gifts, or is it more one-on-one?
If it’s a big get-together, have all the gifts be food or wine or something for dinner (and afterward)?
Put out a call for only homemade gifts?
Drawing a name can be a lot of fun. It allows you to really focus on the person, and you can do more personalized things like taking their car for detailing or similar.
You could do a Secret Santa type gifting?
In my family, we’ve basically gotten away from the everyone buys everyone presents. At 35, I’m the youngest of 6. We tend to get something for the kids and my mother, but only for siblings if we see something perfect. My mother goes nuts at Christmas, so we’re not missing out!
In my husband’s family, we tend to exchange gifts only through kids. We have two kids, my BIL has two kids, and my SIL has three kids. Rather than give gifts to each other, we just have the kids exchange gifts instead.
My own sibs are all childless. However, we tend to give “couple gifts” rather than individual gifts. For example, we might give a set of candles to my brother and his wife, and they give us something to hang on a wall. My sister prefers to “receive” charity gifts–she sends us a list of charities she would like to give money to, and we give the amount of money we would have spent on a gift to one of the charities in her name.
We also pretty much limit gifts to no more than $20 or so per person, if only because none of us has the money to spend more than that, and we all know it. If we find the perfect gift and it costs a little more and we have the money to blow on it, we might make occasional exceptions, though.
Very similar to my family. We have done this for about 6 or 7 years now.
All the adults draw names and give one nice gift.
We all buy gifts for the kids which means anyone still in college and younger. The drawback to this is my kids get too many gifts. Their rooms look like toy stores. My daughter is good at making up bags each year for good will but my son hates to let go of anything.
Among my father’s side of the family, we always did the White Elephant gift exchange (with all but the rule about “dead” gifts). Always great, especially if you have one or two really good gifts that you know two or three people will get really excited over. We always set a price range (typically between $10 and $20 per gift) and any regifts from last year’s exchange must include a new component. A good time is had by all.
An interesting tradition that I’ve read about is that all gifts must be either hand-made or found. A shell on the beach, a hand-made doodad, whatever. It makes gift giving much more difficult and more satifying. You really have to work to find/make that special something and because of that, it means more than a gift certificate to a restaurant. The cavaet, however, is that it takes time to find/make a gift so you have to make that decision sooooooon.
Our family is small and our preference has been the gift of time. We never seemed to have the time to spend with husband’s brother and his family so each year we made it a point to get together over a nice dinner and enjoy a relaxing day/evening. He’s since moved to Florida so that’s no longer an option but it was good while it lasted.
One idea that I’ve enjoyed doing in the past (though it depends on whether you have the time to put into it) is the ‘mini gifts’ thing.
Buy a set of equal sized gift boxes, fairly big, and give one to everyone. Draw names as normal, but instead of buying one gift for the person you draw, buy lots of little ones.
The rules are something like:
all the gifts in the box must cost no more than $30 altogether (or whatever is a reasonable limit for you)
each seperate gift must cost less that $5. You can make this any amount, but the smaller the limit the more creative and difficult it will be.
each small gift must be wrapped seperately.
It’s a lot of fun, it makes the gift-giving last much longer because you all have a box full of gifts to open. You can pick a theme for everyone to use, or just let everyone do whatever they want. I love it because it’s a good chance to go mad with the hand made things, little novelties and ‘I-saw-this-and-thought-of-you’ type presents.
Just a thought, if you’re looking for something a bit challenging and fun. It can be as sophisticated or as childish as you like. And besides, presents in boxes always seem more satisfying somehow.
Why? I’d just expect him to give less, and get more.
For the office or soemthing, those games and such are fine. But you’re family. Buy something meaningful for everyone. Meaningful does not mean expensive.
Yes, it’s August and the temperatures are in the '80s, but I’m asking you to think ahead to a mere 20 weeks from now…
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!
(Curls up in corner and whimpers)
My family used to do the “draw names” in a way - the only difference was that one person would personally choose who buys for whom. The only rule was that one person couldn’t buy for the same person two years in a row and the chooser shifted from year to year. The only reason we stopped doing this is that we stopped doing gifts altogether except for the children.