Christmas Shopping Sucks

[Gilberto de Piento]

Christmas shopping sucks. You might think that my complaint is the $300 per year that it consumes but the bigger problem is that I hate the process of having to come up with what to buy for other people and shopping for those things. Every year I think I'm going to do it in November but it never works out, mainly because I'm busy and because I don't know what to buy. It's getting late in the year and I'm feeling annoyed.

I don't really like having to come up with a list of things that I want either, though I do that because it makes shopping for me easy.

I've tried the "let's cut back on gifts approach" but it doesn't go very far, and it makes me feel guilty. I've tried making things and offering experiences but the scale seems to be tipping towards me having more money than time these days. Any other tips?

[Clarice]

Oh... just suffer through it... 10 more days.

[2Birds1Stone]

Just donate $X per person to a charity you feel would align with their values and call it a day =)

.....easier said than done. Struggling with this for the past few years.....no good answer other than ^

[SavingWithBabies]

If it's for family, we've had good luck with having people make wish lists and drawing names so only need to get a gift for one other person instead of everybody. This year, we're down to 3 presents totaling $100-125(*) which includes the primary gifting (about $50), a while elephant (about $25) and extended family exchange (about $25-35).

Not included are gifts we're getting our kids and gifts we have to get for other people's kids because they gifted our kids (trying to figure out how to end that as our kids get spoiled enough by family -- I'm thinking the ecological angle would work).

My wishlist this year included socks .

* Still a lot of money however it was much higher in the past. It took some time and cajoling to get it down to this amount.

[thegreatvoid]

just be a dick like me and tell your family and friends , that you will not be getting their priviledged asses any presents. Had the talk with my family 5 years ago and they didn´t stop loving me ( annoyingly they still buy me useless crap and force me to play " pakkeleg " with them )

[classical_Liberal]

I'm with @thegreatvoid, just don't participate. There will be some hold-outs that just really have to get you something. So I pick an inexpensive useful item. This year those people were given a specific color of darn tough socks to get me, about $15. By New Years i'll have a half-dozen pair and will never waste another dime on socks for the rest of my life!

[jacob]

All our gifts are homemade. For example, this year, all the children get a navy battle rattle which I'm sure their parents will find hilarious. We've put a family limit on $10/adult for those who insist on shopping or don't have time/skills to make something. (There's no upper limit on children.) This is something the parties have been talking about for a few years before it really began to take hold. Basically we agreed that it makes no sense to spend money on gifts that nobody really needs or even wants (yay, an ugly sweater!) and some struggle to afford. Then it's better to avoid that whole exercise and bake some cookies or wherever the talents lie.

I dunno if it's connected, but there's beginning to be some serious talent going around in the family. Or maybe it's just that xmas is beginning to reveal it.

[Seppia]

Unless someone in the family actually needs something, we have agreed to mostly buy each other food and alcohol.
So my dad gets a bottle of whisky, my sisters some champagne and some homemade marmalade, etc.

We have stopped buying each other useless stuff a long time ago, but I'm very lucky as my parents have been leading by example on what I would call "responsible consumerism" since we were kids.

My sister has two boys aged 1 and 4, and they obviously don't count, I love to buy them the funniest looking peluches from Japan.

[Bankai]

Agree. We stopped exchanging presents with DW several years ago. And as my family lives in another country, we don't do that anymore either. We never did this with any friends. This year I made the final step and opted out from both Christmas party & secret Santa at work. It felt surprisingly uneasy as I previously made a decision to make a conscious effort to socialise and not stand out. It's just so easy with my high introvertism* to not do anything not work-related at all with colleagues. But I just disliked the perspective of participating and everything related to it too much.

* apparently it's an 'unknown word' for Grammarly add-on... 50% of the population, huh?

[prognastat]

I'm not huge on Christmas shopping.

My family is pretty good about it. No gifts exchanged between my siblings and me and my parents only gift some money for birthdays, but not Christmas/Sinterklaas or any other celebrations.

My in-laws however have been a different story, they like to spend hundreds $s per person. Christmas is a huge celebration and worse yet having a huge amount of packages under the tree is also a goal. This leads to more gifts of lower quality. I would prefer spending less, but if it's going to be have to be spent I would prefer fewer gifts that will make a decent difference in day to day life rather than more items that are generally not that impactful.

In the more recent years thankfully we've been able to shift it a little more towards the fewer gifts side of things by saying we are trying to live a more minimalist life and don't want a bunch of things that will add clutter, but it remains a struggle.

[Campitor]

We do a Christmas lottery - you pick a name out of a hat and that is the person you gift to. Saves time and money. The holidays should be celebrated and not drowned in consumerism. I'd rather the money be spent on cooking good food, drinks, and just enjoying each other's company which is what's really needed more than X object that gets used and tossed or re-gifted/donated.

PS - Happy Holidays to the ERE members.

[Jin+Guice]

I'll double down on the just not buying people gifts. I actually forgot that this is part of Christmas. I usually give my gf half the money for whatever she buys her parents so she puts my name on the card and call it a day.

If people really give you shit, there is generally some BS angle you can work them on. Maybe you work some Jesus angle (Jesus was frugal af). Maybe you work an ecological angle. Maybe you work a cheapness angle. Obviously tailor your argument to the person you are arguing and not your own beliefs.

Very few people in any situation will be dissatisfied if you show up to some giftathon with a batch of homemade cookies and some mid-shelf whiskey.

[Gilberto de Piento]

Thanks everyone. For this year I am going to finish up buying gifts as usual (I'm about halfway done, though it was the easy half).

For next year I'm going to put some more reminders in my calendar to get started on this in October or November. I'm also going to keep working to reduce the amounts that people expect me to spend. I have gotten some traction on this in the past so maybe I can take it down another notch.

[Jason]

Maybe you work some Jesus angle (Jesus was frugal af).

I think He just didn't want people feeling obligated to buy him gifts for both Christmas and His birthday.

[7Wannabe5]

Sometimes it is worth throwing down a few pennies to see the look of joy when camouflage print "Winner, Winner, Chicken Dinner" socks are unwrapped. Otherwise, my rule of thumb is that everybody likes pickles.

[prognastat]

But if live by that rule of thumb and they don't, then you'd be in a real pickle...

[llorona]

This year I came up with the oh-so-brilliant idea to practice frugality by cooking, baking, or canning everyone's Christmas gifts. Spent the past several weekends in the kitchen making jam, knishes, hand pies, soup, etc. Uggh, so tired. Next year, everyone's getting gift cards, alcohol, or nothing at all.

[oldbeyond]

Most gifts are now eliminated(to great mutual relief), but otherwise my go-to gifts are books, fancy treats(alcohol, chocolate, coffee, liquorice), for bigger gifts taking someone out to dinner(if really big accompanied by going to a show/the theater).

[vexed87]

Christmas shopping does suck. Fortunately DW sorts the acquiring of gifts for our family, well, she does still occasionally claim shopping is is a form of entertainment, it only seems fair to me.

Just a couple more years of Christmas shopping on my behalf might break that attitude, there were murmurs of dissatisfaction with the division of labour this year, so I'm not sure how long that arrangement will last.

Thank god home delivery is a thing.

DW and DD got (not ugly) Christmas jumper this year, DW also got thermal slippers and PJs so I can continue to turn the thermostat down a couple of degrees. Winter wear is a great option.

[Gilberto de Piento]

Thank god home delivery is a thing.

Yeah, for sure. I bought 90% of the gifts from Amazon.