Christmas Gifting

In your position, as you say this has happened before, I would have made my gifts to them, reflect theirs to me by now (if you see what I mean).
£300 between 4 people is rather excessive imv anyway.
What does your partner say?

I think it will go on forever if you don't stop it. I would phone or text before the visit just to say that you are not giving gifts this year, no need to say why.

I’m a fan of “Secret Santa” gifts for the adults in my family. We started it years ago and it works well. Only the 4 grandchildren receive individual gifts. Adult children, in laws and myself add to 8. We set a budget of £25 and the grandchildren write all our names on pieces of paper at the start of Dec for the draw and pass them round. They enjoy their little secret mission. We only buy for one adult.

I’d take the middle road and gift something to each couple. Price to correspond with what you can afford. I don’t think you have to make any explanations.

I think you should do as you suggest. A nice bottle of wine for each couple, wrapped nicely, along with a welcome into your home for their visit.

They may be surprised at their gift this year, but don't try to explain or make excuses for it. If it is given with love that is all that matters.

I'd give something small this year, then after Christmas suggest that from now on you won't be exchanging gifts. It's easy to get trapped into a continuing cycle unless someone stops it. Better to suggest stopping it well in advance of the following Christmas.

Or give them nothing this year - say you haven't done any shopping yet as it's too early - true!

Please, please can we say giving .
This tendency to turn nouns into verbs is really annoying - eg medalling, podiuming etc!

I do rather agree, Maw, though apparently it isn’t that new…..

The use of gift as a verb is not new, at least according to the Oxford English Dictionary, which lists examples of gift used to mean to make a present of from as early as the 17th century. Yet Google uncovers numerous web pages devoted to griping about this use of the word, suggesting that it is a fairly common usage peeve. The main gripes are that gift is inferior to give in the sense to make a present of, and that using gift this way unnecessarily contorts a perfectly good word for use in place of another perfectly good word. Using gift as a verb is perhaps justifiable when it conveys shades of meaning that the more general give might not get across. For example, if I were to say, “I gave my daughter a kitten,” you might think I decided out of the blue one day to bring home a kitten. But if I were to say, “I gifted my daughter a kitten,” you would know the kitten was probably a gift for her birthday or some other gift-giving occasion. It’s a meaningful distinction—though, of course, I could always just say, “I gave my daughter a kitten for her birthday.”In any case, many people who pay attention to these things have an odd aversion to the use of words outside their conventional part-of-speech roles—adjectives used as nouns, nouns used as verbs, and so on. But this sort of thing has gone on throughout the history of English—and no doubt it has always peeved some small percentage of the people living through any given change—and it’s one of the qualities that gives English its color and versatility. Resistance to new uses of words is understandable, but any insistence that new uses of words are simply wrong is based on an unrealistic view of how English is supposed to work. Of course, personal taste is another matter, and no one is ever forced to adopt a word he or she doesn’t like. Incidentally, there is a second, less controversial verb sense of gift: namely, to bestow with gifts, the gifts here being talents, skills, powers, and other positive qualities. The word in this sense usually appears in the participial form—e.g., “She is gifted with great musical ability”

Wow, £300 is a lot of money.
We do Secret Santa for 10 adults, £20 limit but that is just DD DS GP's and partners. These are all people we will see over the Christmas period.
We have stopped giving gifts to other adult relations and they don't give to us. Your suggestion of a card and a bottle of wine is just fine - maybe find a vineyard that is local to you if you can?

Your partners relatives, your partners parents pressuring, so what does he say to your suggestion for minimal presents?

Namsnanny

In your position, as you say this has happened before, I would have made my gifts to them, reflect theirs to me by now (if you see what I mean).
£300 between 4 people is rather excessive imv anyway.
What does your partner say?

Spend less, but still buy nice gifts, it is easily possible to do this.
If they are coming from a long way then it will be expected by them to do this as they cannot come to you near Christmas.
We always used to buy presents for aunts and uncles and so on, all our extended family and we enjoyed the giving of it and their pleasure.

Jaxjacky

Your partners relatives, your partners parents pressuring, so what does he say to your suggestion for minimal presents?

He is on the same page, thank goodness. This had gone on for years. I understand it is all in good spirits, but it has become tedious for us, and I am sure for them as well. We have all become drawn into it without realising it is a pain in the backside! So hopefully, we can reign it in a bit this year and move on! There are many ways to gift and give, but I hate being forced into things.

Best to have a conversation well before Christmas. Too late now but Just tell them you are stopping Christmas presents from next year and are not expecting anything from them. This year probably go with the bottle of wine.
We are a family of 4 but dd’s in-laws number about 40 and every one of them expect a Christmas present . A huge imbalance, a lot of time and work choosing everyone a gift and a cost they really can’t afford,
I have suggested they agree to just buy fir children and do a secret Santa if they must, but the other adults won’t hear if it. It really is Ridiculous waste of time and money and drives dd mad. Ba Humbug maybe but I agree with her.

Farmor15

I'd give something small this year, then after Christmas suggest that from now on you won't be exchanging gifts. It's easy to get trapped into a continuing cycle unless someone stops it. Better to suggest stopping it well in advance of the following Christmas.

Or give them nothing this year - say you haven't done any shopping yet as it's too early - true!

I agree, give very small gifts this year. Your partner could tell his relatives that he'd rather not do gifts in the future.

MawtheMerrier

Please, please can we say giving .
This tendency to turn nouns into verbs is really annoying - eg medalling, podiuming etc!

I just thought the OP was American.

This year we decided that we would not be buying anyone Christmas gifts but just give a nice card. We mentioned it last month so that people know, and know, too, that we don’t expect gifts from them either.

The following are the reasons why:

1. The extra living expenses we are all faced with - food, heating, and other expenses which continue to rise.

2. The fact that most of us are now on pensions, therefore less cash to spare.

3. It’s always so difficult to know what to buy for people when, by our age, we have most of what we need/want and when we do need something, we buy it ourselves when we need it - the problem at Christmas is that you usually end up buying things for people that either end up in a cupboard, never to be used, or are donated to charity.

4. There are no children in the family to buy for. (They would be the exception to the no present rule if there were).

Christmas can cause so much heartache for so many, pushing people into debt they could well do without. It’s best to be upfront at the outset.

We have had gifts for the children only for a few years now and I love it. I hated looking for suitable gifts for people who really did not need anything . I would put aletter in with the presents saying this would be the last year you would exchange presents and leave it at that.

MawtheMerrier

Please, please can we say giving .
This tendency to turn nouns into verbs is really annoying - eg medalling, podiuming etc!

my words my choice

We stopped all this years ago. The Grandchildren receive a present in line with the allocated budget or cash if they prefer - two are saving for expensive musical instruments - we do not buy for adults and this year we are not buying for each other either.

We are having lunch in December with three very close friends and I am making them something that I know they will use and appreciate - certainly won't be costing us £300 either.

I just told all my friends and distant family I was stopping giving Christmas gifts several years ago. Most of them were relieved.
I exchange gifts with children and grandchildren only. Basically I can't be bothered anymore and most people have everything they need

"Please, please can we say giving .
This tendency to turn nouns into verbs is really annoying - eg medalling, podiuming etc!"

Please, please can we stop correcting how posters express themselves? This tendency to police the grammar, terminology and chosen expressions of posters is really annoying, particularly when we have no idea of their background or country of origin. And it's very rude and bad mannered.

We do secret Santa amongst our family here and it works best.
£100 limit ( raised this year)
One gift each and we also put a wish list in too so that we get something that we might actually want.
Fact is we would spend a whole lot more and the gifts would most likely be unwanted and stuffed in drawers to later be recycled. It really is win win.

We agreed some time ago that adults would each receive a secret santa with a budget max set in advance and kids would get a present each. I thought this worked well.

This year, however, my SS was one of the GKs. So I end up buying a gift for each child plus a SS for my nominee.

I'm trying to work out how it works as the GKs wouldn't be expected to buy for one of the adults (surely).

It's doing my feeble brain in.. How can SS be so complicated? Maybe it's just me.

Mawthemerrier that was totally out of order to correct original posters grammar. I think you should apologise.