Posted: 12/24/2016 8:58:15 PM EDT
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I began really getting tired of this bullshit a few years ago.
My Dad's family, as a whole, finally decided it was stupid to keep drawing names and setting spending limits. Grandma and Grandpa bought each grandkid a few cheap gifts. The kids opened the gifts while the adults watched. The kids then played with thier new loot and the adults broke out the playing cards and games and enjoyed the rest of the evening. No having to blow $50 on a cousin that I don't like. No receiving $50 worth of shit that I really didn't need. I'm on the way to my in-laws right now, who absolutely refuse to stop this nonsense. I didn't get in the drawing this year since I thought I would be working. My wife hates it and wishes they would stop. Her aunt's had a shit fit at the mention of the idea. Does your family do this? |
| Never liked the drawing names thing. My fam all brings one gift, and we draw numbers. Number 1 picks a random gift first. Then 2, and so on. When it's your number you can select a random gift, or "steal" an already opened gift. Once a gift has been stolen a third time its "dead" and can't be stolen again. We get a good mixture of serious and useful, and joke type gifts. It's pretty fun. |
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Quoted:
Never liked the drawing names thing. My fam all brings one gift, and we draw numbers. Number 1 picks a random gift first. Then 2, and so on. When it's your number you can select a random gift, or "steal" an already opened gift. Once a gift has been stolen a third time its "dead" and can't he stolen again. We get a good mixture of serious useful, and joke type gifts. It's pretty fun. My mom's family does this... Call it a Dirty Santa exchange. It's kinda fun, but the family is so big it gets kinda boring in the middle of the game And my Grandma is too nice to steal anything 
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Quoted:
Never liked the drawing names thing. My fam all brings one gift, and we draw numbers. Number 1 picks a random gift first. Then 2, and so on. When it's your number you can select a random gift, or "steal" an already opened gift. Once a gift has been stolen a third time its "dead" and can't be stolen again. We get a good mixture of serious and useful, and joke type gifts. It's pretty fun. That is what we do at work. |
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Quoted:
Never liked the drawing names thing. My fam all brings one gift, and we draw numbers. Number 1 picks a random gift first. Then 2, and so on. When it's your number you can select a random gift, or "steal" an already opened gift. Once a gift has been stolen a third time its "dead" and can't be stolen again. We get a good mixture of serious and useful, and joke type gifts. It's pretty fun. We do this. |
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My family's never really stopped giving gifts for Christmas, and hasn't done anything silly like drawing names, numbers or straws. Mostly gifts, toys, clothes, games and whatnot for the kids. Money, lottery tickets, kitchenware, giftcards, candy and gag stuff for the other adults.
But I have a very large family, and they've always been fairly close to one another. It helps when you actually care about the people you're getting gifts for. |
| My gf's family does the draw a number pick from the pile type thing. But my family goes HAM for Christmas. My gma spends $500-600 for each grandkid, there's 5 of us, plus around $200-300 for any grandkid's SO (currently 2). Then for her kids (my dad and aunt) and their SO's (mom and uncle) she spends around $1000. |
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Quoted:
My family's never really stopped giving gifts for Christmas, and hasn't done anything silly like drawing names, numbers or straws. Mostly gifts, toys, clothes, games and whatnot for the kids. Money, lottery tickets, kitchenware, giftcards, candy and gag stuff for the other adults. But I have a very large family, and they've always been fairly close to one another. It helps when you actually care about the people you're getting gifts for. Everyone buys something for everyone else? |
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Quoted:
Never liked the drawing names thing. My fam all brings one gift, and we draw numbers. Number 1 picks a random gift first. Then 2, and so on. When it's your number you can select a random gift, or "steal" an already opened gift. Once a gift has been stolen a third time its "dead" and can't be stolen again. We get a good mixture of serious and useful, and joke type gifts. It's pretty fun. That's called white elephant gift exchange |
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We are phasing it out slowly. Inlaw family side only. Bad enough doing the steal crap, but when Mom/Grandma wants to take a picture of every frickin gift you start wishing someone would open a pack of razor blades so you could steal them. Parents, 7 kids, their spouses, and their families.
Last year they did a shift left/shift right thing as the one leading it read a story. Ended up with a gift that went home with the giver because it meant WAY more to them than my trash guy. It was much more personal to the giver than practical, functional, or even personal, to me. Humbug. And pass the eggnog.
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| Dice game. Everybody brings a "useful" gift. Gifts in a pile. Roll doubles, you choose a gift. Then for X minute's, the dice gets passed and doubles trades. Then everybody opens. Then dice gets passed around again for X minutes, doubles trades. Afterward, people can voluntary trade if they want. |
| The youngest in my family is 40 and all of us except one have wanted to stop the gifts for many years. My mother absolutely refuses. Therefore, we are all required to buy presents for everyone there, but aren't supposed to spend more than $50 per gift. My mother spends at least half the year collecting all kinds of worthless junk that no one wants from every clearance sale she can find. It's so bad that she and my father have to make multiple trips to my sister's house, where we meet, just to get everything there. Then we have to open up a bunch of junk that we would rather leave on the curb with the trash than take home. My sister, brother, and I have figured it out partially and just exchange gift cards, but the situation is really kind of stupid. We would much rather eat, talk, relax, and just enjoy the day. |
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Quoted:
I began really getting tired of this bullshit a few years ago. My Dad's family, as a whole, finally decided it was stupid to keep drawing names and setting spending limits. Grandma and Grandpa bought each grandkid a few cheap gifts. The kids opened the gifts while the adults watched. The kids then played with thier new loot and the adults broke out the playing cards and games and enjoyed the rest of the evening. No having to blow $50 on a cousin that I don't like. No receiving $50 worth of shit that I really didn't need. I'm on the way to my in-laws right now, who absolutely refuse to stop this nonsense. I didn't get in the drawing this year since I thought I would be working. My wife hates it and wishes they would stop. Her aunt's had a shit fit at the mention of the idea. Does your family do this? Our youngest generation (except for a two-year-old who wasn't present) still get gifts and stocking fucking stuffers. They are either in, entering or have graduated from college. They get reasonable gifts from the old farts, and uncles/aunts, but a lot of silly and useless shit in the stockings. There were mumblings about doing away with the stockings next year, but the idea seemed to be stillborn. A very long-winded "yes" to your question. |
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We limit ourselves to $300 for each of our two kids and $200 for the wife and I. Then about $100 total for stocking stuffers. We buy one gift for each of our parents and that's all.
My wife's parents like to buy gag gifts and clothes. Drives me nuts. We make sure we have pretty specific lists with plenty ideas to choose from, but enough that there is still a surprise element involved. I put down several books and ar15 parts, my wife had a smaller list. Also trying to get out of buying disposable stuff, but fewer more durable items. |
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I am a known Christmas hater
I flat out told my mother and brothers that any clothes or other useless crap I got were going straight into the Goodwill box, my daughter and wife too, since they are not in tune with Grandma's style choices Both my teenage kids are getting an envelope with cash in the amount I would have squandered trying to buy something they liked. I did buy the FIL a good single Malt Scotch, since he is funding my bathroom addition. His daughter got a pass instead of a divorce. I quit buying her jewelry when I found out she was selling it at the gold exchange for shopping money. ( refuses to even look for a job) I expect nothing from anyone. I am a loving father who tries to get my kids what they want, within reason, when they want it. Kid want's $25 to upgrade a game, grades are good, here you go. Daughter want's to go to the mall and upgrade her wardrobe, within reason, here you go. No special occasions, just you do your part, and I will reward you as best I can. But all these stupid expectations that I'm supposed to provide gifts for adults who can buy their own crap? Get fucked Everyone else can fuck off and take their Merry bullshit elsewhere. |
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Quoted:
That's called white elephant gift exchange Quoted:
Quoted:
Never liked the drawing names thing. My fam all brings one gift, and we draw numbers. Number 1 picks a random gift first. Then 2, and so on. When it's your number you can select a random gift, or "steal" an already opened gift. Once a gift has been stolen a third time its "dead" and can't be stolen again. We get a good mixture of serious and useful, and joke type gifts. It's pretty fun. That's called white elephant gift exchange We just got done with a variation of that at the wife's family. They are Irish so all of the gifts were booze. One person held a deck of cards and each person guessed the suit that was coming up next. It went around 12-15 times before the last person guessed the suit correctly. Each time it went around whoever guessed the suit could either steal a gift or pick a new one from the pile. After 6-7 times around everyone was getting pretty bored and wanted to get back to drinking.The same gift was traded back and forth a bunch of times. It was an incredibly dumb way of doing it. Never again. |
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Quoted:
I began really getting tired of this bullshit a few years ago. My Dad's family, as a whole, finally decided it was stupid to keep drawing names and setting spending limits. Grandma and Grandpa bought each grandkid a few cheap gifts. The kids opened the gifts while the adults watched. The kids then played with thier new loot and the adults broke out the playing cards and games and enjoyed the rest of the evening. No having to blow $50 on a cousin that I don't like. No receiving $50 worth of shit that I really didn't need. I'm on the way to my in-laws right now, who absolutely refuse to stop this nonsense. I didn't get in the drawing this year since I thought I would be working. My wife hates it and wishes they would stop. Her aunt's had a shit fit at the mention of the idea. Does your family do this? Yes. This is why I ask for cash. It cancels it out for me. |
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What do you want for Dhristmas? "Peace and quiet"
No really what do you want? "A wheel barrow full of gold" Baby tell me what you want for Christmas! " Wool socks" No tell me what you want for Christmas.... " I've already told you. You chose to ignore my answers and probably have some preconceived notion of what YOU want me to want. So just do what you were going to do anyway and stop wasting my time and energy." No but you have to pick something! "I want you to shoot me in the face with a 12 gauge. So I don't have to answer any more questions" |
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Quoted:
I began really getting tired of this bullshit a few years ago. My Dad's family, as a whole, finally decided it was stupid to keep drawing names and setting spending limits. Grandma and Grandpa bought each grandkid a few cheap gifts. The kids opened the gifts while the adults watched. The kids then played with thier new loot and the adults broke out the playing cards and games and enjoyed the rest of the evening. No having to blow $50 on a cousin that I don't like. No receiving $50 worth of shit that I really didn't need. I'm on the way to my in-laws right now, who absolutely refuse to stop this nonsense. I didn't get in the drawing this year since I thought I would be working. My wife hates it and wishes they would stop. Her aunt's had a shit fit at the mention of the idea. Does your family do this? |
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For ourselves, we said "fuck it" years ago, and just buy our own shit, and show it to each other. We usually go through a department store or two with me saying "how about one of these" and she says yea or nay, but we didn't do thet this year.
Her sister still sends a box of crap up every year, and we (she) sends one down with the same sort of shit in it. It keeps the two of them happy. and her sister is a kind soul, who lost her husband last year, so christmas isn't as much fun for her anymore. (and there isn't a frigging thing in the whole world she needs) This year we bought a new(er) car, so we agreed that's our present(s). Ho! Ho! Ho! and all that sort of shit to all here, and a good 2017 to everyone. |
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I couldn't fucking imagine buying gifts for extended family and shit, mother of fuck that would be absurd.
This year I smoked close to 40 lbs of pork shoulder to give to everyone including extended family. If they don't like it I'm sure they can feed it to a dog, and failing that their trash can works just as well as mine. |
Whew.
| No, we still do it, but it's far better than having to buy gifts for each individual like weused to. That got expensive when the kids started getting older, so we dropped it back to doing one gift exchange. This year, I'm putting in a G1W dash cam, which I'm sure will go unappreciated by whoever ends up with it. Shit, I would love to get something that useful. |
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We dont do an extended family gift exchange.
My grandmother still gives me cash even though I am 35. Usually about 500. I turn it into a gun. I buy my parents something nice and thoughtful, a book or something they would like. Last year my parents helped replace our floors as our present. Kids get a bunch of crap as always. For my wife I bought her a spa day at the Hilton. She bought me (I bought myself) a new laptop as the old screen was cracked. |
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Quoted:
I began really getting tired of this bullshit a few years ago. My Dad's family, as a whole, finally decided it was stupid to keep drawing names and setting spending limits. Grandma and Grandpa bought each grandkid a few cheap gifts. The kids opened the gifts while the adults watched. The kids then played with thier new loot and the adults broke out the playing cards and games and enjoyed the rest of the evening. No having to blow $50 on a cousin that I don't like. No receiving $50 worth of shit that I really didn't need. I'm on the way to my in-laws right now, who absolutely refuse to stop this nonsense. I didn't get in the drawing this year since I thought I would be working. My wife hates it and wishes they would stop. Her aunt's had a shit fit at the mention of the idea. Does your family do this? everyone buys 50doallrs worth of "guy" gifts or 'girl" gifts, then puts them in a big pile and then they get passed out. Kind of neat. impersonal. shit tons of cheap tools and bargain buys. better than yours. we dont do any gifts any more though |