How to Reduce Christmas Present Obligation?

MovingForwards

If they are proper good friends they should understand you cannot afford to do it and should respect your situation, or this is a way of finding out who your real friends are!

If you want to you can make cake/ biscuits and hand them out to family which would cost a couple of quid for ingredients (but only if you do have it spare).

But whatever you decide please do not feel guilty about your decision.

Jolinar

We stopped buying presents for the adults a long time ago, my side of the family were more than fine with this as we all club together and make Christmas and Boxing day a family event with nice food and drink. The kids still get gifts or money paid into a savings account. DH's side of the family were told but kept buying for a few years, but after that they got the message and stopped buying, it was all unwanted tat anyway if we're being honest so eventually everyone was happy (ish!).

As other have said just stick by what you decide and what you can afford. It's immensely liberating not having to buy and wrap tons of stuff.

Good luck!

Blackbeard_of_Perranporth

My nana bought a pen and a dairy. Job done. She always put her birthday in it!

LameWolf

We stopped doing present of any sort (Yule, birthdays, the whole nine yards) from necessity in 2002, when we were totally on our uppers, and we've carefully never restarted the practise.

Mojisola

I 'inherited' my parents' birthday and anniversary card list - I was buying and sending cards on their behalf for the last few years of their lives and just kept doing it.

I made the decision to put a halt to it last year - I put a slip of paper with an explanation in with the 2017 Christmas cards and now just send cards to the oldies left in the family.

All the younger ones are on some kind of social media and get greetings that way.

It felt a bit 'off' as the first ones went by without me sending a card but it's now a big relief - you have to stay firm once the decision is made.

Jojo_the_Tightfisted

hedgesparrow wrote: »

I saw Martin on tv talking about reducing unnecessary Christmas present giving.

I really want to do this. Mr Hedgesparrow's and my immediate family is rather large and so we give a lot of presents at Christmas (all on the low budget side). We also give to lots of friends.

I would like to reduce the amount of presents we give. So last night, on a whatsapp group of ten friends, I tentatively suggested a secret santa, instead of what we normally do, everyone getting everyone else presents.

They did not go for it. Only two people have replied and they both say they want to give gifts to everyone. I feel a bit bah humbug. One person said no one is obligated to get them anything in return, but no matter what they say, I would feel bad if they gave me something and I didn't give them anything.

I know I'm not the only person in the group who feels this way, because someone suggested no presents at all last year. But that didn't go down well either. I was really hoping my secret santa idea would be a good half-way house.

Should I just quit this idea, suck it up and buy them all something? I love these people, but the thought of all this shopping makes me feel stressed already, and it is only September!

If they won't go for the halfway house, then stay at home. The next message should be along the lines of 'Unfortunately, I can't afford to buy everybody a present this year, so I'm going to have to drop out. Sorry'

mattpaint

I do think there's something special about collective gift giving at Christmas that we're at risk of losing. But I'm the victim of a mother who will insist on buying complete toot and wasting her money on us all every year. So I do get it both ways. I only give one gift per person to a very small group of people but I put effort into making sure they are something they will want and use or else there's no point.

CurlyTop

We too had this problem with my brother who at the time was unemployed and couldn't afford much and my sister who had a very well paid job but didn't put a lot of thought into the present giving. I raised the subject and suggested just buying for the nieces and nephews at Christmas however, we would continue to buy birthday presents for each other as it spreads the load across the year.

I have in turn, discussed this with my friends and we too, don't buy christmas presents for each other but do buy birthday pressies. Some friends I've even gone as far as to ask if they can stop the birthday pressies too but to send each other a card. The way I've wrapped it up, is that, at the age of 55 nearly, there's not much I need however, I do so love to receive a card in the post and this would be so much more appreciated. They seem to have accepted this. Just an idea.

meanmarie

I loved Christmas as a child and it was a very frugal event..... most of my presents as an only child were made at home and when we visited aunts and uncles there was some cake and pudding for each household......i never knew I was deprived

I no longer buy presents for my children.. they get cash for birthdays, my 9 grandchildren get presents until they become teenagers, from then on it is cash, will probably continue with that system.

Marie

DKRobert

I was just blunt about it a few years ago and told people what I was doing. Most were happy to be free of one less obligation to he honest. There'll always be those who still buy you something (Grandparents in my case) but I know it'll only upset them if I insist so I let them get on with it.

I have posted cards to neighbours in my building block the last few years as an attempt to get to know people, but this'll be my 4th Xmas here now so I'm scaling back to those I speak to regularly.