Presents for Family Members

juliebug1997 · December 2009

Bill's sister wants to do a name draw for the five of us (Bill, SIL, SIL's husband, BIL and me). It doesn't seem like it would really be saving anyone much money. How do you and your siblings handle gifts for each other?

stephl3055 · December 2009

We did that this year for David's family for the first time. He has 5 siblings, plus 2 of the siblings are in serious relationships, so that makes for a total of 7 people (plus his parents) that we would've otherwise had to buy presents for.

We did 2 drawings. The first was a secret santa type thing where we buy something valued at $50 for the person. The other was a fun gift thing where we could buy a gag gift or something interesting for $15 max. We are all going to still get his parents a gift. So in our case it works because we go from 7 gifts down to 4, but I can see how it may not necessarily save you money depending on your situation.

shortgirltx · December 2009

We only have one sibling between us so it's not a big deal. One year on his side we all drew names (parents, nephews, aunts and uncles...everyone), one year we didn't do anything and last year we didn't do anything since we didn't visit. I imagine we won't be doing anything for his side this year but who knows.

appletango85 · December 2009

Usually for extended family(only like 4 extra people but still) we do Chinese gift exchange and I suggested we do "secret" santa this year so the gifts are more personalized.

We have 9 people participating...3 siblings and 2 bf/husbands. Times are *really* tough for my parents(they are in the remodeling/real estate market) and my sister. Plus I like the idea of giving and receiving a more personalized gift to you than a general gift someone bought bc they liked it. And a huge thanks to whoever initiated the ornament exchange as that is how we did ours!

My budget is usually $10 a person though and they know that is because of all the people I have to buy for. I usually spend more on my brother just because he's relatively young still(14). Plus he has expensive taste!

I don't buy for extended family except my mom's mom because..well..I don't want to get into it.

juliebug1997 · December 2009

Bill really thinks that his sister is doing it to be cheap. She would be buying one less present. BIL is the one who would come out ahead--instead of buying four presents, he would get to buy one. I told Bill I didn't really care but it did seem a little silly with there just being five of us. Plus, it's not like Bill could draw me or SIL could draw her husband. I don't think they're even going in on a gift for their parents like they normally do. I am just shrugging my shoulders at this point when it comes to his family.

I give gifts to my parents and brother. My parents take two of my uncle's family and I take the other two so we can spend more on that person. I generally go overboard on my brother because he's pretty much taking care of himself financially. I usually buy him clothes or a Visa gift card to go to anywhere he wants.

danielle16_17 · December 2009

we have about 15-20 memebers of my hubby side so we have the girls get a stocking and stuff it with girly things and have the guys do the same than we number them and have the girls and boys draw numbers seprately

Donnaaries · December 2009

I'm an only child so no issue there. FI has a brother and a sister, both of whom are married and now have little ones. We don't do the "draw a name" thing so we limit it to $150 per couple/family... but still, with 2 sets of parents and 2 sibling families, Xmas is a big hit for our budget... ugh.

resoundingnoise · December 2009

DH has 4 siblings + parents, I have 3 siblings + parents, then we have grandparents and a nephew. We buy individual presents for each person, so Christmas is quite a hit to our finances as well.

Terriniski · December 2009

I have three siblings, and we used to buy a present for each person (about $25-30 per person). But it just seemed a little silly because anything we want for $25 we would probably just buy ourselves. So we started doing the secret santa thing and setting the amount around $100. I like it a lot better because it means I only buy one gift and it's something that's a lot more appreciated than a couple CDs. At this point, we don't include Jordan in the secret santa exchange - maybe when my siblings get married, we'll just draw names as couples.

Jordan has a half sister who has three kids. We're not that close to them, but we'll be buying them a family gift (probably a board game or Wii game).

JessTX · December 2009

Well DH and his family never really exchange gifts- don't asllkme, but I'll just consider myself lucky that they aren't that into the holiday thing across siblings and parents. I have always exchanged with all my immediate family members- so both sets of my parents, my sis and her husband and their two kids. I suppose if we had to do all of that with DH's side, we'd reconsider what we do.

JessTX · December 2009

Sorry. I'm tired today. That was suppose to be "don't ask me" instead of whatever that mess was I typed!

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