Giving Christmas/holiday gifts: do you?

[shootingstar]

I do. Though I admit with family far away 4,000 kms. away, it's a stretch to send alot of presents with the cost and ....possibility of loss in mail service. Which has happened several times. :( So I save up combined birthday and Christmas gifts when I visit in person. I do try to send real Christmas cards to family. They do display cards..it's real. I'm not there in person to celebrate Christmas.

I do understand the philososphy of not giving any gifts to reduce materialism and teach children a valuable lesson. But I will admit as a child I did want some gifts..just for me. I do have clear memory of several years as a kid where there were several of us and my parents were poor. So poor, that there was just 1-2 boxes under the artificial tree (no way, we could not afford a real tree) with cookies, chocolates or socks /pjs.

I personally don't ever recall getting toys just for me at all as a child. Now maybe my parents were still new to concept of Christmas.

So later getting more presents personally was fun. Materialistic. I dunno. But I REALLY did understand the value between no presents and parents who fed us, we had a fake tree in a warm house with lovely snow falling outside in evening. I knew I was loved but it did feel hollow not get a present for myself instead of sharing it with other siblings. I did not need to be taught about the value of family love vs. materialism. I just was tired of sharing possessions with siblings or they vice versa.....as a child/teenager. Yea, teenagehood was that too.

Maybe that's why family doesn't get over bent out of shape if we don't receive presents on the exact special days of the year. As long the little present came...soon.

[Crankin]

I don't celebrate Christmas, and when my kids were young, I tried to deal with Chanukah in a way that didn't totally give in to the gift giving frenzy of the season. Also, when they were very young, we lived in a place where the Jewish community was small, but growing, and not everyone my kids met understood why they didn't have a tree (those poor deprived kids!). What I decided to do, was given that there are 8 nights of Chanukah, we chose one larger type gift to give them on the last night. Two of the nights were taken up with presents from each pair of grandparents. The first night we gave them a small toy. For the remaining 4 nights, we did things like candy, a family outing to children's theatre, a movie, books, or getting together with friends. As they got older, they volunteered to give donations to various charities, as part of the celebrating. My DH and I have never exchanged gifts for Chanukah, as our anniversary is 12/8 and we are more likely to do something for that.
This year, for the first time, we are going to our older son's house to celebrate tonight. We bought them a pair of artist designed wine glasses at a local artists' co-op, and are also giving them 2 bottles of wine, as well as a scarf for my DIL, that DH brought back from one of his trips to Asia. My other son and his wife are visiting the week after this one, and we got him a very nice Mountain Hardware shirt and her an artist made leather clutch, from the same store where we got the wine glasses. We also are paying for their rental car when they come to visit.
I send my dad a gift basket of some type of food or a gift certificate to a store.

[malkin]

No rule here, hardly even a general pattern. Sometimes I buy tons of stuff, send it everywhere, sometimes hardly any, sometimes something in between. I have in the past sometimes sent massive amounts of cards and other times not. Sometimes it happens early, sometimes late, sometimes Christmas Eve and sometimes Christmas morning.

This attitude was really useful when I was sharing the kid with my ex- who always had expectations that he could/would not express in any simple or comprehensible form.

My general philosophy is 'Do what you like during the holidays.'

[shootingstar]

What got me thinking and remembering my own childhood was this article:

http://grist.org/living/married-father-of-two-seeks-best-christmas-ever-no-presents-allowed/

I thought I'll mention that true poverty....is very tough when there are no/hardly any presents for children.

I don't agree with the opposite either, parents who might be able to afford a small gift but righteously impose no gifts allowed or similar. Crankin I came from a family, where I don't quite recall if our birthdays as young children were even celebrated with gift until we were much older. It was hit and miss....when my parents got around to it. Neither parent didn't know how to bake a cake, except steam an egg cake (Chinese style). Couldn't afford to buy a birthday cake each time... Maybe we had a cookie or a candy, but not for every birthday even. BEcause of cost. We were that poor. Quite poor. I don't recall missing the cake probably because we never regularily celebrated with a cake/party. But the birthday was acknowledged on the day and dinner was abit bigger. :)

BAking at home never happened anyway until myself and others learned how to bake from home ec. classes.

Then later on, when we all started to earn money after university (it was expected we save our part-time, summer job wages for our education/accommodation out of town..or some clothing for ourselves), what was noticeable of my parents was that they still gave the same type of presents: clothing that my mother sewed, socks, mittens/gloves, etc. Then for whole family box of chocolates, cookies. They didn't try to buy presents that reflected our hobbies, passions, etc.

I really think...to them, culturally, presents were just superficial gestures, for all the time and effort they did give their care and love to each of us. My mother does know certain favourite food dishes for each of us, so it's other times of the year, she would make this stuff for the person when the person visited,etc.

At first for awhile, it felt strangely wierd to get these presents, but now we know they mean well...and one day we will not get gifts even like this anymore.

I write a small cheque for my parents, Crankin. I've been doing this for past few decades every Christmas. We know that's what they really need: money because my parents are low-income.

The general rule of thumb when I buy for my siblings, nieces and nephews, cost of gift is around or under $25-$30.00. It is possible to buy neat/useful stuff with that amount. I haven't raised the bar in the past few....decades. If I count it all..it's buying for 12 people.

For dearie, I spend lots more money.

[Crankin]

Well, I never was the "opposite" opinion, of no gift giving at all, but I did try to contain it. We had the usual requisite birthday parties, but tried to contain it with limiting the amount of guests! One of my kids was very overstimulated by any celebration and I had to consider that.
My dad is low income at this stage of his life, but he would be very offended if I sent him a check. He still considers himself "the father," even though he just moved in with my brother and no longer has the means to provide what he did during my childhood (he's almost 88 and still quite active).He appreciates the gifts. I try to consider his interests. Since my mom died, I don't get gifts from him, but I do get a card and a phone call.
It sounds like a lot of your experience is culturally based, I agree. From my perspective, what I dislike about this season is with many of the families I work with, they put so much stock into making a "nice holiday" for the kids, which to them means buying lots of stuff. Of course, some of them try to buy their way to getting their kids to behave, but it seems like too many people are willing to put themselves in debt for this.
Just my opinion. Now that I can afford it, I love buying gifts for my kids, maybe because I know that as adults, they really appreciate it.

[Aggie_Ama]

My family (parents and paternal grandparents) were always into huge, extravagant overspending Christmas. My husband and I haven't even done gifts for one another in a few years mainly due to finances. We used to do something relatively small compared to what a lot of people I know do. For family I get my nieces and nephews a present about $25-30 dollars. For the adults I bake cookie baskets which they all love, in fact I think they may cry if I stopped. When we used to buy gifts for the adults it was always something pretty modest but it was fun to really try to find something thoughtful on a budget.

[OakLeaf]

many of the families I work with, they put so much stock into making a "nice holiday" for the kids, which to them means buying lots of stuff.

Yeah, I see that too. I see it as a kind of double whammy. On the one hand, chronic (as distinct from situational) poverty so often coincides with an absence of critical thinking (I'll save my opinions about the reasons ...) - the parents were never given the tools to judge the cultural messages they receive. On the other hand, poverty is so deeply stigmatized in the US that parents quite rightly want to do whatever they can to spare their kids ridicule, even if it means accepting all the consumerist messages and spending money they don't have.

[Crankin]

I totally agree, Oak.
A few of my clients have told me that they are toning it down this year. And, when I put in my list for people to receive gifts from various benefactors, I only had 6.... 4 of my clients and 2 siblings. The clinic administrator called me in on this, and I told her that not everyone I work with is super poor (which is true). In reality, I didn't include the 2-3 people who would financially qualify, but already have gone overboard in buying gifts for the kids. I am sure they all think my bah humbug attitude is from not being Christian, but I have spoken to at least one other clinician who didn't put in any requests for this very reason.

[Trek-chick]

Both DH's family and mine always buy for the kids until they graduate HS. We do a gift exchange for one person (do a name draw at Thanksgiving) on each side 25-50$ so, we are not really spending a ton of money.

But, DH and I spend (some would say) an extravagant amount on each other for X-Mas. We do not have any children ourselves and we do not buy any other gifts for holidays/special occasions including B-Days. We usually just go to dinner so, that is how I/we justify it.

[Catrin]

I don't have a family (as far as a partner and/or kids are concerned), and my family is in Tennessee for the most part. I've not the budget for gift buying, so I am focusing on doing my best to actually be physically present at Christmas this year, and I am taking a "Christmas Duck" (rather than a turkey or goose) home for the holiday meal and I will cook it. I will likely take the makings for some other treats, like my special chocolate chip cookies, or some other such treat. I hope we can spend some quality time together and make THAT the focus of the holiday.

[GLC1968]

I grew up in a household where my parents used to hide our presents in closets when company came over because it was so excessive it was embarrassing. Standard response when we were kids and asked for ANYTHING (even a pack of gum!) was 'Christmas is coming!'...even if it was January. ;) We were ridiculously spoiled by our parents, our grandparents and our aunt.

Now? We have no children in our immediate family. My brother and his wife haven't had kids yet and my husband and I opted out. My husband is an only child and he has virtually zero contact with his first wife and his parents have passed away. Because of this, the holidays are what ever we want them to be and lately, they've been a little scrooge-like.

This year though, we are all travelling to Florida to spend a week with my parents. My oldest cousin and his wife and their two young kids will also be there, so it should be very festive. We've agreed to no gifts (only stocking stuffers) but I assume that won't apply to the kids. I'll wait until we get there before buying anything though, just in case. And the best part? I haven't been this excited about Christmas since I was a kid! I can't wait for the parties at my parents house, big family dinners, watching football with my dad and husband, a trip to the beach for grouper sandwiches and reliving all the silly little family traditions (including our traditional Christmas breakfast) with my family. Plus, I haven't seen my brother or his wife in 4 years, so it'll be so much fun to have plenty of time to catch up! To me, Christmas is about family and it always has been...even though we were horribly spoiled as children. Somehow, even with all those gifts, my parents clearly did something right because both my brother and I feel the same way. It's not about the presents, it's about family and the 'traditions'.

[Trek-chick]

I buy gifts for our dogs too :D I like to get them all riled up and watch them tear into the presents. They know how to unwrap them too....(but, I just wrap loosely in tissue paper)

our Lab used to get so excited, she opened one of hers before Christmas day! She had a thing for squeeky toys so, I got her one that had like 12 squeekers in it. She opened it and tore out most all squeekers when DH and I left one night to do some last minute shopping. Came home to stuffing, random stuffed animal body parts, and squeekers all over the family room. LOL

[PamNY]

My general philosophy is 'Do what you like during the holidays.'

+1 on the above!

My parents were good at Christmas. Plenty of gifts, but nothing really excessive. I never believed Santa was real -- they told me the Santa story was something we pretend for fun. I adored getting or making gifts for them and my grandmother; Christmas was as much about giving as receiving for me, and I'm grateful for parents who made that possible (and joyful).

When we lived near the Smoky Mountains and learned there was fresh, beautiful snow in the mountains on Christmas day, we all put on boots and headed for Mt. LeConte. I don't remember the details -- I'm sure we had Christmas dinner as usual, but the schedule was certainly altered and we all had a lovely day.

Now that I'm not involved with family, I don't do much for Christmas. In years past, I made a tradition of the nontraditional, usually enjoying yummy foods in neighborhoods where nothing closes for Christmas. Sadly, my like-minded friends have either died or moved away, but I have great memories of yuletide dim sum.