Not scroogey at all! But if you don't like it, change it...
So opt out. Politely tell your family that you will no longer be buying gifts for everyone and you do not expect gifts from everyone and be done with it.
My Secret Santa gift to my uncle is a Visa gift card with a note that it is for his vasectomy copay.
Seriously. Stop procreating!
I don't mind giving gifts to everyone in my extended family but, I make it easy on myself. I create a gift basket per family. The basket is filled with homemade goodies (breads, candies, snacks), local goodies from our state, etc. I have fun putting them together and they all seem to enjoy them. Honestly, if they expressed that they weren't good enough, I just wouldn't give them anything the next year and that's that. *wipes hands*
This kind of gift giving makes it easier for me to spend the amount that I want to spend on my immediate family without all my money going elsewhere, but, everyone else still gets something from the heart. It has made life so much easier.
Just a gripefest.
I'm just sick of the ridiculous commercialism of the whole thing. I've got 10 nephews and nieces. I have 3 kids of my own. I want to buy my kids presents for Christmas. I think it's ridiculous that we should have to buy for all the other kids, especially when my family judges everything by how much money you spend. Do a grab or something. And why should we be buying for 16 and 17 year olds? By that age, I had a job and was buying my own things.
Yes, I'm just a Scrooge.
What a lovely idea.....
I get an email of all the different gift cards my nieces and nephews want, then I end up at Wal Mart buying various gift cards for everyone. I just spent about $500 in gift cards.....It does make it easy for me to shop, but other then that what's the point?
If you don't want to do it, then don't do it. I dont' see an issue with just saying "I can't afford it, so I'm not going to do it".
If you don't want to totally stop, there are alternatives.
-Buy one gift for each sibling group (a game? a snack basket with a DVD?). You can take care of each 'group' for $20 instead of buying an expensive gift for each child.
-Set a monthly date and do something with each of those nieces/nephews. In January you might take Joey to the movies. In February maybe you take Susie ice skating. In March take Billy to the zoo for the afternoon. Then you are giving time and an experience and you are minimizing the cost and spreading it out. You can give them a gift certificate for a 'date'
-Just give each a SMALL gift (books are great!)
In my family we decided years ago to stop buying all the gifts...it was just ridiculous. We do a grab bag for EVERYONE and then we buy ONE gift for each child who is still of school age (our family is small so there are only 4 of them - if your family is bigger like yours, maybe you should draw names and have each child buy for ONE cousin...so if you have 2 kids you'd need two gifts, set a $$ limit, like $20).
You have to just decide what you are going to do, then follow through with it and if other's don't like it TOUGH LUCK TO THEM....they can spend what they want, but you have your budget. YOu have to have a certain amount of 'I don't care what you think' attitude to pull it off.
I love my family dearly. Everyone gets along great and there is zero strife. I wouldn't want to be "that sister" who puts her foot down and says no more gifts for the adult nieces and nephews. So I just suck it up and purchase the gift cards. It does get expensive and annoying but it's not really out of our budget.
Sure everyone has a choice, but sometimes opting out is just not a good idea.
Have you brought up the idea of an exchange or cutting gifts off at a certain age for the nieces and nephews? Years ago my brothers and I decided we would stop exchanging gifts and just get stuff for the kids in the immediate family. It just took someone bringing it up and a quick 5 minute conversation.
I love my family dearly. Everyone gets along great and there is zero strife. I wouldn't want to be "that sister" who puts her foot down and says no more gifts for the adult nieces and nephews. So I just suck it up and purchase the gift cards. It does get expensive and annoying but it's not really out of our budget.
Sure everyone has a choice, but sometimes opting out is just not a good idea.