I highly recommend kinda "eloping" one Christmas Just go on a holiday instead. For a while we were feeling a bit overwhelmed by our gift giving "commitments" so just said "stuff it" lets just get away and enjoy ourselves. it was when our DD was a baby... we were expected to cart her around to everyone's places... which was highly unsettling for her... and tricky for us for numerous reasons... so to avoid offending anyone the next Christmes we just took a holiday. It was the best solution for us at the time. Sad it had to come to that... but when you have adults putting themselves before the needs of a baby and sleep deprived parents then there was little choice... unless we were ok to continue being martyrs