I considered that Artechim, but we don't have anywhere to give them. I'd rather have the point get across that we don't need gifts, especially chocolate when it's known that it won't be eaten. I ended up calling Mum because I couldn't really articulate what I meant without sounding completely rude, and she's fine with it. Turns out my brother asked her not to get him any too, he never even used to eat them when he was a kid.
I guess this is a bit of a carry on for me from Christmas. We have 12 people to buy for (after the kids) and so we set ourselves a $50 limit. That's still $600 and money is very tired for us. It's 12 people who we have no idea what to give, and when asked they say "oh whatever you buy will be fine". But after the agonising and driving and walking and endless shopping and wrapping, it turns out that whatever we buy isn't necessarily fine. Because they just bought themselves a new bag, they don't need another hat, they switched from apple to android, or whatever. And it goes the other way, we've received gifts that for one reason or another aren't appropriate, because of little things that they didn't know.
And I know I sound totally ungrateful, I truly don't mean to be because I know the stress, thought and money that goes into them. So many times we'll be handed a gift with the line "I didn't know what to get you so I hope this is okay". I know they've spent time trying to come up with something just for us.
But I think what if we just keep that $600? And they keep theirs? Spend it on themselves, and just come and spend the day with us, have a great lunch and avoid all that stress, make it about the family instead of the gifts. Because it got to a point last year where quite a few gifts were cash, and so if I give my brother $50 and he gives me $50, we're just back to square one and what's the point?
Anyway I've kind of gone off on a rant on a different tangent here, and I probably sound totally ungrateful, but it's been bugging me.
I totally get where you're coming from Teeki! We've decided for christmas and birthdays to only buy for the kids these days, alltogether there's 9 grandchildren/nieces and nephews so that's a fair chunk of money too.
I'm glad you sorted the easter/chocolate issue out with your mum too, I'm pretty lucky with my family, the boys will get a small easter egg from my brothers, and my mum buys pyjamas or a small lego set for easter for the boys. Mind you, chocolate wouldn't go to waste in my house with DH, I have to hide the easter eggs from him so he doesn't eat them before easter lol
Teeki I've had heaps of these similar discussions with family lately. For Christmas every second year we see DH's family and there are now 25 of us all. So last Christmas we agreed one set of presents for the kids of each side of the family (MIL and her sister) then the adults do a Russian secret Santa thing. It's awesome, each adult buys a $20 gift, wraps it and then once the kids are asleep they get put in a big pile in the middle.
One person starts. Chooses a gift at random, opens it, everyone sees. Second person can either steal the opened gift or choose a new one from the pile. And so on. Hilarity ensues. Everyone wants certain gifts. Stealing, negotiating, bribery are all encouraged, but an item can only be stolen three times max. The third person to steal a gift gets to keep it.
It is heaps of fun, really involves everyone and only costs $20 (or whatever you set) per adult.
My family, on the other hand, has decided to do away with adult gifts all together and just do kids.
Re: When you don't want gifts
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