How does your extended family handle Christmas? My Son asked me the other day if we could draw names instead of shopping for everyone.............there aren't many of us.
I didn't give him an answer because I have to speak with our daughter first.
I rather like the concept of drawing names but I'd love to hear how your family/friends handle gift giving at Christmas.
Monday, November 10, 2008
Drawing Names for Gift Giving
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Our family is pretty small too. Just us siblings so we still give each other gifts. It's usually just one gift per couple and nothing pricey. We do tend to spend more for the little ones though.
Have a great day. :)
Gift-giving has kind of gone the way of family Thanksgiving dinners in my family which is really too bad, not because I miss the gifts but because I miss spending Thanksgiving gathered around the table with aunts and uncles and cousins and all.
The older I get, the more depressing holidays become. But, to answer the actual question, I know a lot of families that draw names and it seems to work for them!
I think I enjoy giving gifts more than receiving them - but we all have to be practical and spend within our means. I have never grasped the concept of pulling names out of hats to buy presents for someone. We now no longer buy for adults but I would miss not buying for my children and if I had grand children I would buy for those too. I think if you have an open mind you can often find things that are quite unexpected and different that make wonderful gifts and sometimes you can find things that are quite reasonably priced. For instance whilst out shopping today, I found a few stocking fillers which included nail sets that had been reduced to 99 pence at a supermarket ... heaven knows why but the supermarket had about two hundred that they had reduced to clear the shelves.
We obviously don't celebrate thanks giving - all of our celebrations revolve around Christmas and the New Year. My husband and I still buy each other presents which we wrap up and open on Christmas morning and sometimes, I think I probably get a little carried away because it's lovely watching someone get something that they don't expect.
Do you all still write Christmas cards too? I must confess I do, mostly to family and friends and a few to neighbours - but probably over the years this quantitiy has been reduced by two-thirds which is a good job as it used to take me several full evenings. Now it takes me about four to five hours - phew!
We have stopped giving gifts to each other since long. For many reasons. Of course, the kids don't believe in Father Crhistmas anymore, if they ever did.
Then, we lived for many years in places where there were now christmas trees, christmas only a date on a calender and no gifts to buy. And in the last ten years, I was not much around for christmas.
So, christmas has, as time went by, become less important. And we all got "pissed" at the christmas period anyway. As I am writing this, the shops in Switzerland put up already christmas decoration, you find in your mailbox a lot of leaflets with gift suggestion sand food you can/should buy. WE ARE EARLY NOVEMBER.
We do though gather for christmas, the four of us, if we are around, for a common meal. A bit more fancy than usual, but only a bit. The extra is that we open a good (or a better) bottle of wine.
We make no gifts to each other. That's it. But we make a common (quite substantial) gift to an organisation we admire.
The Salvation Army. In this period, when it is cold, they are standing all day in front of shops, singing and playing music to collect money so that they can feed people who are alone, invite them for a christmas dinner and give them shelter for the night.
They are going to smoke filled bars (companies have their christmas dinners and parties) to raise money and get often (in particular when one of their female soldiers is cute) exposed to not well placed comments and remarks by half drunk (or sometimes not even drunk) customers.
They really have courage, they really do something good. And that's why we make a gift to them.
Ours is a pretty small group, so we just all buy for each other. This year could be really interesting depending on how things shake out by the end of December.
One of the best ways to enjoy Christmas is with family. It is done only once a year so giving gifts would be nice. The gift should not be expensive. The saying, "It is the thought that counts" is a cliche' but it is still true, especially in times like these.
Our family has done both--and we have also done both on my husband's side. I like the idea of drawing names because it takes the focus of of "buying" presents and more on spending time together. But then I also end up missing the part of getting to go out and try to find the perfect gifts. Usually we've chosen to draw names when finances were tight--But we always buy for all the children regardless...
We tried to do the name drawing one year and it was a disaster. We have a few in our family who put lots of time and effort into gifts and a few who don't.
We buy for just the kids (the younger ones). If anyone is coming to stay with us, we do buy for them, but otherwise it just gets too expensive and I just don't think that's what Christmas is about. I'm sure you don't either.
It's about thirty of us on hubby's mom side of the family and we've been doing the gift exchange since forever :o)
We draw names at Thanksgiving. It used to have $50 limit, we took it down to $30 last year with the bad economy and all. We love it!
On hubby dad's side its only about six of us, but we do white elephant in addition to one small present.
I don't have anybody on my side of family so I enjoy these very much :o)
Christmas went downhill after my mom died. She was the one who would get everyone really excited about the holiday and would take my daughters for the few days before Christmas to make candy or cookies or gingerbread houses. Then we lost my MIL and it got even more pared down. Since then it's a pretty quiet affair with just gifts among my husband, daughters and I....oh and grandma. She's the only one left in the area.
We just quit. It got to the point where we were giving each other gift cards! Seemed really dumb to keep doing that.
We all decided to just buy for the kids. Mom and dad too of course, but there are so many of us, and for us, Christmas is all about the kids. We did the name exchange once, and set a price not to go over, well, some of my sisters went over the limit, so some kids got much better gifts then the other kids...and they were disappointed. We don't do that anymore.
I know several families who have now opted for drawing names. In my "extended family" I used to buy gifts for everyone but now I just buy for the kids - there are only 3 of them. This year, I'll be in the Dominican Republic for Christmas and will be bringing gifts for the two boys I sponsor there.
We buy for everyone on Bret's side of the family and they buy for us.
On my side of the family, we buy for my grandma, mom and brother and they buy for us. We use to buy for aunts and cousins, but it was getting too expensive. Up until this year, we did a grab bag with those relatives but aren't going to anymore.
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