Money Moral Dilemma: Should I ask my partner to contribute to Christmas gifts for my family?

Torry_Quine

Aranyani said:

Torry_Quine said:

Aranyani said:

Torry_Quine said:

It seems very strange to me that you'd each buy for your own family. Never mind the £50 for Secret Santa. Surely a couple aren't dividing presents up so precisely.

They’ve been together less than 2 years so not a long-standing couple, we don’t even know if they share a household or are ‘dating’. 

The post says partners and I may well be old fashioned but that means living together. 

By the way 18 months after meeting my husband and I were married and that's when we began our life together and so sent joint presents.

I don't think there's any common definition of what partner means, it certainly doesn't mean they definitely live together! 

Being married so soon is very unusual these days in most cultures in Britain, so the norms of a married couple shouldn't really be applied to a couple who are't and are quite new in their relationship.  I agree that if you do get married then the costs of gifts for the extended family should be considered a household cost. 

No wonder I'm confused. I really thought partner meant someone you lived with without being married. 

Torry_Quine

74jax said:

We are married and he buys his family gifts (birthdays / Christmas) and I do my family.  He forgets his sisters often and can be heard a month after saying whoops forgot again...............  all gifts get sent from us both.

I can never understand why people don't remember dates. Everyone has access to a phone which has a calendar on it or can use a diary or paper calendar. 

elsien

I may have mentioned before that my twin “forgot” my birthday one year. It’s just laziness and hoping your better half will do it for you. 

Aranyani

littlegreenparrot said:

In terms of the question I would just say no thank you to bring in the secret santa. 

I wouldn't do that, including her in the Secret Santa is a lovely welcoming thing for his family to do, I wouldn't want to reject the kind gesture. 

Spendless

@elsien - that genuinely made me lol. My sister has boy/girl twins, now adults and this is definately something I could see my Nepew doing along with not 'getting' why his sister and mum would be cross with him over it.

Spendless

JGB1955 said:

£50 for a Secret Santa?  Someone's having a laugh - £5 tops in my experience. 

I'm guessing you're thinking of the sort of ones you do at work or teenagers do at school/college. I have an extended family branch that do the more expensive Secret santa that is being descibed here. The idea being that instead of everyone buying everyone else something, you all participate in Secret Santa, you get just 1 present but that value is for £50 and it's probably cost the gift giver less than if they'd bought the whole family a gift.

tacpot12

It really is a clever idea to invite the OP to participate in the Secret Santa - leaving aside who pays.

£50 is quite an expensive gift, so the OP will not want to 'spend' that much money unwisely, even if her partner actually pays the cost of participation as I suggested. They can't ask the recipient what they would like because it is a 'Secret' Santa, so they will have to ask other members of the family about the person they are allocated to buy for. It's a great way to integrate the OP into a new family!

CatherineL

I'm going with the previously suggested... He pays both the £50 as it is fitting with the original agreement.

To those that say it is strange not to buy from joint money... My husband and I have done this for years. To begin with, we did things jointly, but when I bought his sister a necklace she gave to her mum and my dad gave the gift from my husband to my sister (husband got really offended by this but didn't see the parallel), we gave up.

Whether you think it is strange will likely depend on if you buy into the whole "single household pot" idea. Not a big fan myself. Prefer, "mine", "his", "children's", "household", as long as the distribution is fair. And as "household" doesn't extend out of the house... extended family is personal money!

--Tony--

It's a secret Santa, you buy a gift and YOU get one in return.
You can hardly expect your partner to fund the gift but keep the reciprocal gift.
If you don't want to take part just say so, it's that easy.

al223

--Tony-- said:

It's a secret Santa, you buy a gift and YOU get one in return.
You can hardly expect your partner to fund the gift but keep the reciprocal gift.
If you don't want to take part just say so, it's that easy.

But if they weren't doing secret santa, they would buy no gifts and get several in return assuming they would receive them from the different members of the partners family. So being in the secret santa would mean buying two gifts for two random members of the partner's family, instead of gifts for all of the family, so the partner should pay for both gifts.