Secret Santa

I buy small presents through the year .
I buy when things are on offer and it avoids a crazy last minute panic round the shops .
I only had one present to buy this year and it was for my ten year old grandson .
I find females much easier to buy for !
I don't spend a lot .
I've sometimes made gifts for people .
My present bag has birthday gifts too .

Look, some people just like giving gifts, I do, I like the thinking what someone might like, I like finding it, and I see in my mind them opening it and hopefully liking it. I might be far from the truth but it keeps me happy

I have suggested a couple of times to a friend that we drop present giving but she is adamant that we continue as we are the only friends they exchange gifts with. The problem is that I never see the presents we give them and some of the items they have given us are not to our liking and clutter up our cupboards. Each year they spend more on us and I see it as a waste of money. I’ve suggested that we meet up instead but when we did this a few years ago she turned up with a gift!

Greenfinch meeting up with friends for coffee or lunch in December as your present to each other is such a lovely idea. That will be so much more memorable than a token exchange of gifts. Enjoy!

It's a good idea to do that in a large family. I buy presents for our 2 sons, their partners, the 5 grandchildren, 2 other adults and 1 other child, as well as 2 birthday at Christmas.

Couldn’t agree more Calendargirl. I think it was Martin Lewis who suggested not giving so many presents in these cash strapped times. He thought that friends and family would be delighted at the idea.
My personal take is to round up friends I haven’t seen for a while and meeting up for coffee or lunch in December. Meeting up will be our present to each other.

Many years ago one of my reports was a young woman who married in the October (late 1970s). She confessed to me that she and her husband had "only £50 between them to begin married life". She admitted they were lucky because they had a flat to rent and family and friends had given them household items to furnish their new home.

On the run up to christmas young colleague arrived with bags and began to show other staff members items she had bought for gifts for family members. Once we were alone I expressed puzzlement that she had the funds to do this. She confessed that she and her husband had taken out a bank loan to do so. When I reported misgivings about going into debt to buy gifts she confessed that she would have felt mean not buying nice gifts because "everyone had been so generaous" after the wedding. But surely her family would understand that a newly married couple have limited funds and not expect more than (if anything) a token gift.

This is the dark side of Christmas. And one of the reasons why it is decades since I celebrated it.

I think present giving has got out of hand. My friends and I decided a number of years ago to stop giving to each other. One of my cousins fell out with me when I suggested stopping. She had only me to give to whereas I had four on her side. It was costing me a fortune!

Cards nearly gone, presents dwindling what else is there?

At the risk of sounding pious, just the actual ‘meaning’ of it, which seems totally forgotten by so many.

Very practical but so sad i think
I love giving presents and although it’s always a big headache of what to buy who, isn’t that part of it? What else is there …. Just food and eating
I don’t cringe at lists at all I d much rather know what people want and buy them that as it’s probably something they want but haven’t set aside the money for
Cards nearly gone, presents dwindling what else is there ?

We only give to children and special needs adults. Very liberating! No need for any more stuff in our lives, as we all can and do buy for ourselves during the year if there’s anything we need.

I cringe when I see or hear of adults making lists to circulate.

We're only doing presents for the GCs but for adults we're having a lucky dip. Each person brings one wrapped present to the value of £10 and can pick one from the pile in exchange. That should be interesting anyway.

We agreed years ago to only buy for children under 18 and it works perfectly well for us. Us GP all ask the AC for ideas for gifts for our DGC, that way nothing gets duplicated, and they’re very mindful about avoiding plastic tat.
One particular year, we did do rogue and bought a secret Santa gift, but only from a charity shop, for us adults.

It’s going the same way as cards and in 10years no one will give presents and they ll be telling kids ‘when we I were young we used to get lots of presents’ and the kids will be wide eyed and say oh i wish we did that now!!

With my large family we tried a Secret Santa a few years ago and also an on-line one.

It really didn't work for us and now we're back to buying individual gifts...

It's what Chrsitmas is about after all...I think?

We do the same just buy for DGC and do an adult secret santa which is.good fun asking their partners what they would like etc . We still but for the children though of course ! I also just buy birthday peessies for my friends not xmas .

Babs03

This year due to it being a really hard year we have agreed as a family only to buy for the GCs who are still small, and to do a secret Santa for the adults. Last year friends of mine agreed we shouldn’t buy for each other. It just gets silly and many people just don’t have the money to splash out and others haven’t got the energy/inclination.

This is exactly what we do - secret Santa starts at 10 years old for my family. DD organises it using a website and it works well for us.

But then we usually make more fuss of each individual on their birthdays throughout the year, so those are our main present giving events.

I don’t exchange gifts with friends by mutual consent - haven’t done since retiring. We all agreed that we could buy our own handcream and thus be sure of getting one we liked.

Calendargirl

^Will I just get used to the lack of presents to give?^

Yes, it will soon feel like a relief.

Very true

This year due to it being a really hard year we have agreed as a family only to buy for the GCs who are still small, and to do a secret Santa for the adults. Last year friends of mine agreed we shouldn’t buy for each other. It just gets silly and many people just don’t have the money to splash out and others haven’t got the energy/inclination.

We just have presents for the children no adults and it is great.
On the subject of Santa and gifts I worked in a workplace where they had a Christmas party with a secret Santa . The only trouble was that Santa was the HR manager and he was horrible . He made all the females sit on his knee to get their present . I got round this by not putting my name in the hat and not taking one out when the presents were being organised. This meant I avoided Santa. My friends always wondered why I never got a present but I was happy.

No! It won’t!

Will I just get used to the lack of presents to give?

Yes, it will soon feel like a relief.

It’s a good enough idea for a big family but I don’t like it and still send all my grandkids money or gifts I d feel so wrong buying for one and not the others so still do it my way