Family growing up what gifts should we share

Yes, feel the same. I've actually bought a lot of gifts that are the same. I've men's aftershave x3, longline Borg cardigans X 4. Saves a lot of faffing. I used to go to a lot of trouble but I'm done with it, by and large.

One Christmas we did a family Secret Santa. It worked so well. Each adult got one good, well thought out, present to a set value and little children got presents from everyone. I loved what I was given and it seemed that everyone else was happy with theirs too.

We started Secret Santa a few years ago except for the children. It worked really well but this year we’ve all agreed to just stop that too, everyone is in agreement and honestly I’m relieved. I give the children money and I’m done, perfect.

We haven't done it recently because the Christmas group grew to include other family members well beyond our immediate group but I wish we could go back to it.

We went from individual gifts that caused incredible stress for the part of the family working in retail, their most hectic time of year, to a Secret Santa gift for the adults. That suited us very well for a while. Then came a request from one couple to not buy gifts for adults. We went along with it while initially feeling very uncomfortable. Now Mr C and I buy a token gift for any adult we see on 25th, those we see before and after Christmas don’t expect or get a gift. We’re also happy as we truly don’t want more ‘stuff’. It seemed odd at first, now it’s just a different tradition.

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

We have Secret Santa - there are 6 adults and 6 children, so each adult buys a gift for an adult and a child, fifty quid limit. We just had the name draw this week. So everyone gets a good, decent gift. It's much nicer and cheaper than lots of cheaper presents.

We stopped buying adult gifts at Christmas and for birthdays many years ago in our extended family and everyone loves it .

My husband and I buy gifts for underprivileged teenage boys in our town instead. There are several charities that run such schemes and teenage boys are always left out as there is no cute factor attached to them.
We had 2 teenage boys not so long ago and it is our obvious category to buy from.
One year I was shopping in Topman and the young assistant gave me a 10% discount when I asked his opinion on a particular item.
The extra money was added to the Food bank gift aid donation.