That's a lot of Bah'ing!

My siblings and I try to make sure that we've got current wishlists at amazon around Christmas...I pitched it to them along the lines that sometimes, you won't have a great gift idea, and at least this way one can rest assured that one is purchasing a gift that will be appreciated.

However, having said that, I've tried to avoid those lists EVERY year. Haven't always succeeded, but it was fun to try.

the whole thing just feels like a soulless chore on both the giving and receiving ends

This was the point that I emailed everyone in my family letting them know that I am no longer gift-giving and would they consider donating money to their charity of choice. Some went for it. Others admitted that they want to get good gifts.

So, I can feel your pain there occh. I hope the grumpy passes quickly.

This was the point that I emailed everyone in my family letting them know that I am no longer gift-giving and would they consider donating money to their charity of choice. Some went for it. Others admitted that they want to get good gifts.

Yeah, I feel like this is where we're hovering right now. Not that anyone's intentions are bad, just that I think everyone's a little up in the air about what we're supposed to be accomplishing here.

Sigh. The grumpy will pass. I just had to pull together all my wish lists tonight, which intensifies the grumpy. But my hope is that by getting it all out of the way tonight, I can stop bothering myself about it for a while.

Also I just spent way too long looking at shoes, and it seems that mary janes are coming back in, which makes me happy, because I am a child of the 90s (or, well, child of the 70s, but came into fashion age in the 90s). Yay, clunky shoes!

Occhi, you should tell them to mail you a Neiman Marcus gift card with a big red bow! That'll do it.

The reason my parents, sibling, husband and I stopped exchanging Christmas presents is because we mainly exchanged gift cards (not Neiman Marcus). There was little thought put into gifts. Although, one year my parents bought us a night on the "romance cruise". That was pretty nifty. Prime rib and alcohol on a boat down the river.

My hairdresser and I were talking about Christmas presents today and she said, "My kids (now teenagers) don't tell us what they want. I don't really ask, either. I have a pretty good feeling of what would freak them out in a good way on Christmas morning and that's what I buy them." I thought that was excellent.

My sister and I just decided that we would start exchanging again for our birthdays. We stopped exchanging years ago and just do lunch or something. We have now decided to set a monetary limit and get really creative and fun.

Last year I mentioned that we (parents, sister, husband) should all exchange this year but it must be handmade. My dad joked and asked what he was going to do with a bunch of homemade crapola. So, we decided not to do that either. We will just eat and be merry.

We are bah humbug around here beacause we always say, "We'll buy what we want." And we do. It's less stressful that way.

That would grinch me right out too.

The one time my family importuned me for a shopping list, I told them I wanted refrigerator magnets.

Next year, everyone's just getting Hot Topic gift cards.

Here you go, occhiblu. :-)

SHOES! OMG I love all those shoes.

SHOES!

It's funny, my family (+bf) is split exactly down the middle on the gift receiving spectrum. My Dad, the older of my two younger sisters, and my boyfriend will pretty much like anything. My mother and my other sister want exactly what they want or they want nothing at all. I'm probably in the latter group, too. What can I say, I love making lists of things that I want.

Waaaaaaant!

A small thoughtful gift means so much more than something from a list. One friend is making matching hats for Squigs and I (she let the cat out of the bag when asking about colours) and I'm so excited.

OMG I want those too!

These are my favorite. Though I actually have a similar pair, but they're slingbacks rather than mary janes, and the strap tends to slip off my feet, and they're insanely high, so I don't wear them very often.

A small thoughtful gift means so much more than something from a list.

I know, I really like using/wearing things that other people have picked out for me; I get all excited and tell everyone who compliments me on those things, "Oh, my brother bought this for me!" or "It's from my boyfriend!" My brother got me the most awesome raincoat last year, which still makes me happy. And he and I went through a couple rounds of "OK, what styles do you like?" with the coat, but he managed to find something that I had never seen before in a style that looks great on me in a color that's gorgeous and that I never would have expected.

This place can be SUCH a girlzone. GOSH!

/smiling nicely.

SHOES! :-)

We've been getting more listy over the years, and it is a little sad - because my family loves gift-giving and people are great, inspired, and creative about it. I don't want gift-giving to turn into filling out an order form, either. At the same time, though, I don't get to see my family as much as I'd like, and the wish list really does help me to learn what they're reading, listening to, and dreaming of...and then we tend to freely ignore most of the list anyway.

OOoo those have such a plump roundness to the toe....

I'm pretty list-grinchy, myself. This year, I got hornswoggled into my partner's family gift exchange, where they set a generous limit (about equal to my entire Christmas-list budget for my side of the family), and swap names Secret Santa style. I'm expected to provide a list as well as buy from one.

I tried and tried to come up with something great to put on my list, but I really don't want, y'know, stuff. (In our teeny overstuffed apartment, we're already anxious about a possible onslaught of wedding presents.) I ended up making a vague list of consumable treats: unscented candles, fancy chocolates & nuts, wine and brandy. But my Santa must want to kill me --- no way is she going to pile up $XXX.00 worth of candles and chocolates.

Too late, I figured out something I would love: a couple of gift certificates to local restaurants. A night out in the neighborhood is a real treat, and one it's pretty easy for family members to order from a distance. Next year!

Ooh shoes! *sniff - i remember when i could wear shoes!! These days, not so much!!! My feet are like elephant feet these days!! I can barely wear flipflops yet alone shoes!!

Has that babbeh come out yet? Or did I miss an announcement post?

I was very lucky that my feet and ankles didn't swell too much - and 6 months down the track my feet have gone back to the same size exactly as before.

But because I always wear stinky bum I have to wear sensible flat shoes cause there's already enough falling over risk on uneven streets as it is.

In recent years that's what my family has done, but I don't necessarily think it's a bad thing.

Everyone is busy doing their thing. My older sister just moved out of the house and into an apartment in Mass, she's working working working. My little sister is a senior in high school and writing college essays and applications and all that. My dad is busy working and redoing the dining room by himself. My mom is busy working and taking care of everything else around the house. I'm busy with school/finals.

On top of all this, in recent years we've slowly been downgrading Christmas from WOAH MAN LOTS OF HUGE PRESENTS FOR EVERYONE to a comparatively low key thing. I told my parents I didn't want anything this year, as a college education is a pretty good gift I think (even if I'm going to be paying off all those student loans in about a year...).

My mom has still continued to bug me about what I wanted, so I've been keeping it small and practical. A sigg water bottle, a particular type of notebook I've been looking at, a silly poster to put on my dorm room wall. That's all I've given her, because if I know her she'll buy me things on top of that. Tsk...

With everyone so busy, it's nice to be told "y'know, for Christmas, I would like X." Where X is a specific but small item. This eliminates guesswork on the giver's part and, especially with so few gifts, disappointment for whoever gets it (I've gotten some truly out of left field gifts in the past. I guess I'm a tough nut to crack unless I say exactly what it is I want).

The whole arrangement reduces stress for everyone involved and actually shifts the focus away from the materialism of Christmas back towards a time of year when we're all together with family.

....

Sweet Jesus. Less than two weeks. Sneaks up on you.

I'm easy. All I want is sweaters. If everyone who is so inclined as to get me a gift were to buy me a cheap, ordinary sweater, every year, I would be far happier than with anything else. No one in my family seems to get that though.

I've given up on buying gifts for my family. We all absolutely SUCK at purchasing gifts. (My father has never bought a gift for anyone in his life. My brother buys gift cards. Mom hasn't bought anything that has fit anyone in our family since I was about 5. I buy books. I spend most of my time finding snarky books that aren't obviously snarky.)

I fucking hate the holidays. HATE.

I'm not doing gifts this year, except a calendar of Essex scenery that I've sent to three friends in the US, a dachshund calendar for my sister, a bottle of wine for my vet who took such good care of Bailey earlier this year, and some chocolates (a re-gift, as they're truffles made with alcohol that someone who doesn't know I'm in recovery gave to me) for my hairdresser.

I'm taking some cat food up to the Chestnut Cat Sanctuary (which is where Bailey and Lucy came from), but apart from that, I'm not doing the gift thing.

This has, I suspect, upset my sister, because I told her not to send me anything this year. She always gives me tons of crap - 15 things that cost £1 each from the pound shop (dollar store), things like scented teddy ornaments for the car, 'desk sets' that are absolutely useless, 'novelty' items, etc. It all ends up in a bag outside the Oxfam shop the day after Christmas. I really can't see the point of giving gifts just for the sake of it.

Since I haven't really connected to my parents or sister in any significant way, gift-buying has always been a chore. My dad enjoys opening up a bottle of wine with me and my sister, so one year I got him a "Wine for Dummies" book. Later, I heard that he got offended by the "For Dummies" part.

My sister has been buying me things from my Amazon.com wishlist for the last three years and every time she does, I smile because I've always felt that every other gift she ever got me prior to that has been what she wants me to have that dovetails with her personality but doesn't intersect with mine. Like one year on my birthday after I'd gotten out of college, she got me a mani-pedi party in a pail: 5 sets of tiny bottles of nail polish, emery boards, lotion, etc. and invitations so that you could invite your bestest gal-pals over for a mani-pedi party! Except none of my friends at the time would have ever gone for such a thing.

Now, I look back at things like my collection of novels from the Kushiel's Dart series and smile because I know my sister decided that of all the things I wanted, she picked that thing.

I have to interrupt this thread - My boss just gave me the COOLEST GIFT EVER!!

Knowing that I'm an embarrassingly huge fan of Buffy - she got me...

A MINY VAMPIRE HUNTING Kit!

It contains a teeny tiny stake, a itty-bitty head of garlic, a weeny bottle of holy water and a minature cross.

I love love love love love it.

THAT is the kind of thing that makes giving and receiving presents so damn good, and why picking gifts yourself is never as much fun. I'd NEVER have thought of that... and it turns out it's my favourite gift EVER!

I love presents. I love to give them. I love to open them. I absolutely hate requesting them. Really, if it's not something you know I'd hate and it's in pretty paper with a nice bow, as far as I'm concerned, it's a successful gift. The only person I'm not offended to receive a gift card from a national shop from is my mother, because I know she's giving me the gift of recreational shopping, not just taking the easy way out.

I buy my family and friends Christmas presents all year. I mean, if I see something someone would like, I buy it and save it for Christmas. I don't think I've ever bought gifts from a list (except, you know, wedding presents).

MuddDude's family does lists, my family doesn't. I just added some stuff to 'Dude's list, which was way easier than coming up with a whole bunch of stuff on my own. MuddDude's mom sends us a couple books every few months (after she reads them), which is pretty much what I want for Christmas.

We're spending Christmas with my folks and grandfolks this year, which involves a complicated gift exchange who's rules are constantly changing (so everyone ignores them anyway). There are no lists, it's full of espionage and junk dug out of the basement and re-gifted items from the previous year. Usually it's great fun.

jonathanstrange, that's awesome! Hee!

I'm happy to say, Pie is very easy to shop for. He likes lots of types of things in many different price ranges. This is a first for me! Usually, my S/O is very hard to shop for. (My past relationships have been with technofiles, something which Pie is not.)

We've decided to only shop for each other, and give special chili jars to family and friends. We did sneak some gifts in for my mom, but only because I missed her birthday. I've never been one to make Christmas a big deal. It's pretty laid back all around.

As for me...I make some lists, but more as a "something like this" than a IT HAS TO BE THIS. Plus, anything by 2021. I don't think I've found a piece by them that I didn't like.

I don't do the gift-giving thing (this changes when you have kids, she gets lots of stuff but if you wrap up a ball in a bow she's thrilled, so it's not like it needs to be expensive, and it's often a big mix of toys and stuff she needs, like stockings or mittens, anyway). Me and my mom have had a long tradition of eat good stuff, relax, then hit the sales early. We have all that money saved on not being pre-sale spent and can pick up some neat stuff we want. It is however tradition that we shop together, so mom may use my nerd-streak when she wants to get a camera, and I can use her fab-streak to find those perfect cashmere sweaters hidden under a pile of wool.

(it does help to plan what you might want to get on the sales. We discuss what we need on Xmas instead of opening gifts, and the next morning all the pre-sale ads with tempting prices are in the paper, so we can look them over in our own sweet time. Sale used to start much later, in January, but these days you can actually go to the sales the day after Xmas. I know that mom needs a new TV soon, that might be the thing we go look for. That is if I go up there for Xmas, which is also one of those things that change when you have kids. Dunno yet.)