Christmas gift giving

**crdurham** · 08-28-2002, 12:41 PM

How does your family handle Christmas gift giving?? In my immeditate family (husband, mom, dad, sister and brothers familys) we give everybody a present and open gifts the 24th...
As for the rest of the family, we just get something for my grandmothers and the kids...and have dinner at my grandmothers......since we live in the same town with my dh family we spend a part of the 24th and 25 with them and the rest of the time at my familys....

How do you do your gift giving?? Do you draw names or have a spending limit??

**mommy2three** · 08-28-2002, 01:47 PM

we used to get for everyone, but now that everyone has kids, it can get expensive. so, now we draw names for the adults and also buy for all the little ones. we do this on both sides of the family. we also make a spending limit, but i think that takes some of the fun out of it.

**justjenn** · 08-28-2002, 01:55 PM

We spend Christmas Eve with my inlaws, and Christmas Day with my parents. We have dinner at both places, and exchange gifts. My inlaws always spend $100 on each of us, but we spend about $35-$50 on them. I set a limit for each person. Haven't made up my mind about this year.

**mom2matty** · 08-28-2002, 02:17 PM

We normally spend Christmas with my FIL, SIL, her boyfriend and her 2 daughters, then there is my dh, dd, ds and myself. We do a token type gift for the adults and focus more on the kids. My Mom and sisters and their families all live far away so I usually send them cards and gift certificates for movies or whatever. I also send my Mom a pre paid calling card!!

**AmyBoz** · 08-28-2002, 02:32 PM

We divide the holiday up between my parents and dh's family. We go to one house in the morning and the other in the afternoon. (We live 2 minutes from both sides of the family.) At my parents house, we buy them gifts and they buy us gifts. I am an only child, and dd is an only grandchild, so there are a lot of gifts being given to us (and to dh as they always wanted a son, too). It's a little overwhelming sometimes, but it's what they want to do, so we do it. They realize that money is tight with us, so we usually buy them a few things each. At dh's fathers house, the adults (3 brothers and their wives, one sister and her husband, and my fil) all put our names in a grab-bag and so we all just buy for one other adult. (We all buy something for our fil...we just let him put his name in the grab-bag anyway...it's cute.) Then, for the nieces and nephews (including dd, there are 7) we all buy them one or two gifts. The more nieces and nephews there are, the less we buy. We put a limit at $20 per kid two years ago, and since then, there are 3 more kids, so we are down to $10 per kid, but I got in on Amazon.com's free shipping and toy clearance and got them all great games or toys for under $10. I've already bought all of their presents. Then, dh and I exchange a few gifts with each other. We buy dd a bunch of stuff, but don't go too crazy. She's still at the age where she'd rather play with the box!