International Nesties
dulcemariamar1
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Our tech team has launched updates to The Nest today. As a result of these updates, members of the Nest Community will need to change their password in order to continue participating in the community. In addition, The Nest community member's avatars will be replaced with generic default avatars. If you wish to revert to your original avatar, you will need to re-upload it via The Nest.
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Note: This only affects The Nest's community members and will not affect members on The Bump or The Knot.
Who do you buy gifts for during the holidays?
Do you buy gifts for everyone in your family or do you just buy one gift for each family?
What would you do in my situation? This is the first year that we have nieces and nephews. However, we have almost no contact with my BILs.(They both have one kid each)
Would you buy their kids a gift? We might have to just to avoid family drama but it annoys me that they expect to get a gift from us when during the year they dont even call or contact us. (We have called in the past but gave up when it was only a one-sided relationship)
Re: Who do you buy gifts for during the holidays?
DH and I avoid this by only buying for parents. And honestly, we're all at the point where no one needs anything (and can't think of anything they want), so we pretty much have nearly scrapped that as well. We'll buy for parents this year, since we're away, but if we move home in the next year or so, we might move towards gifting our parents "experiences" or something, instead of material items.
We don't buy for siblings, neices/nephews, etc. It would get way too expensive and way too complicated.
And honestly, if your ILs can't be bothered to pick up the phone, I wouldn't be bothered to give them gifts! That's ridiculous. Good luck!
I just do my mom, brother, sister in law and niece. My dad isn't into gifts so we just call or do a card. I feel like it's just more about expectation (so long as it's reasonable) and tradition more than a strict "which family members qualify" thing.
We don't really do birthday gifts, either, though. My family is not the festive type. So basically, ignore my response. :-P
DH and I buy gifts for the close people in our immediate family - for example, parents and siblings. And sometimes for other people we know we will see, such as DH's Mom's roommate and close friend. Or sometimes for people we think might give us something - so we would have something to give in return. Mostly since we've been in Belgium we will bring back a ton of Belgian chocolate (small boxes) and distribute it as we see people over the holidays.
I have a much older half-bro and half-sister from my Dad's first marriage, but I do not buy for them or their kids. My parents have always given their families presents from "all of us" and one year I did get presents for everyone in my half-sis family. They are the kind of people that don't write thank you notes, or acknowledge the gifts and it was pretty expensive, so I was like f that. I might bring something small ONLY if I was going to see them on actual Christmas.
I'd say if you want to send them something, send a gift for the whole family. I would probably do that to avoid family drama too, but I think its very rude for people to expect a gift from you - esp if you're not close to them. Maybe you should send something small for the new babies if its their first xmas? Then, family only presents after that.
I remember asking my Mom a long time ago something along the lines of "who do I have to buy for when I am grown up" and she said "Remember who ever you want to remember. Gift giving is not mandatory"
When we were living in the US, we had lots of family all close by. At family xmas parties we would bring one gift per family - Movie tickets, something edible, family ornaments, or one year we even did a Redskins throw blanket (they are big fans). It shows you thought of them, but you don't have to buy for each person.
We're headed to the Maldives on Christmas Eve!
I am going to let my DH decide because it is his side of the family. His BIL was so kind to remind us that since his DD was born in January we couldnt just get her one gift for Christmas and Birthday
This is the same family who threw a fake "baptism party" for her. They are not Catholic but they wanted their DD to have a party like the other babies.
For my family...my mom, my niece and 2 nephews, and my godparents. For my brothers and sisters in laws we just bars of chocolate (who doesn't love Swiss chocolate??).
For DH's family we buy a gift for his mom, dad and brother.
We combine things. We usually buy every person 1 really nice gift per year (and spend the money we would on birthday/father/mother's day/christmas/anniversary/whatever else there is) and tell them this is for every festive thing this year. Last year I even combined this for my dad and stepmom and got them a really nice new espresso machine.
Everyone already has so much random crap, I'd rather give people something they really want/can use instead of adding onto the crap-pile. Slowly we're convincing people in our families to do the same for us.
I usually do get a couple of cheapy little silly things for stocking stuffers, because that's just plain fun (this can be new socks, a bag of nice coffee beans, a 10-pack of disposable lighters (for the smokers), batteries, etc). Usually I wrap everything individually. This way we still have the unwrapping mess, but no useless crap gifts.
My food blog
What I'm looking forward to in 2012:
Eating our way through (northern) Italy on vacation
<a href="http://www.thenest.com/?utm_source=ticker&utm_medium=HTML&utm_campaign=tickers" title="Home DMy immediate family stopped doing Christmas gifts about 15 years ago.
My favorite Aunt always sent her nieces and nephews $100 each Christmas, so long as we were unmarried. I want to continue the tradition with my cousin's kids. (I will not be getting nieces or nephews from my siblings.) But right now, I can only afford $25 a cousin.
If you are a gift-giving family, I would send a present to the kids and skip the parents -- so long as you keep the practice with any future nieces or nephews. If not, I'd just send a cheerful card to the families.
My family is Jewish so no presents there (it was always the tradition in my family that parents buy gifts for children on Hanukkah. So I get small gifts from my parents and my mom gets a gift from my grandmother normally). I'm assuming once we have children, my parents will just get them gifts instead.
DH's family are super, super into Christmas. We used to buy for practically the whole family but now it's just his parents, sister and her boyfriend. We normally do a donation gift (and receive one) for his grandparents.
However, my mom and brother both have December birthdays so we end up at the same place with family commitments. Usually my brother and I get each other gifts for when we see each other, not at specific times of the year. I always get my mom a birthday gift.
BFP Apr 2012, EDD Dec 19 2012 * twin h/b at 6wk, 9wk scan * Baby A lost at 12wks, Baby B was my rainbow born at 36wks
Immediate family for both of us, so parents, siblings and nieces/nephews. We don't do birthday gifts with our siblings but definitely for Christmas.
I wouldn't exclude the nieces/nephews because of your BILs. But, are they babies? If they are it is easy, just get them something small.
This is the part of the year that my MIL really gets on my nerves. She sends us a list for all of H's cousin's kids with their age and christmas list and we're supposed to buy for all of them. It's 5 kids. I guess I'm the grinch cause H thinks it's just fine. I just don't like being required to buy gifts. Then we each have to find a gift for their family gift exchange.
We also buy for our niece and nephews and our parents.
In your situation, I'd probably buy the kids a gift.
It depends on where we are and who we are with at xmas.
This year my brother will be here so we will get him a gift and a stocking. If we go back to Canada then I get gifts for my parents and brother and my 2 BFFs and H's parents if we visit them on the west coast.
Here I also buy for my SIL and M's best friend. This year we have had a lot of new babies in our group of friends so I will get the babies something for their first xmas.
DH's mom, dad, sister and BIL.Can I just say that I hate that in Spain, Christmas gifts are big ticket items? I know they're expecting something expensive this year since we got married and that means we have cash in the bank.
Back home, my mom, dad, brother, SIL and niece.
I'm sort of in a situation like that. Although SIL is very sweet and considerate with me while I'm home, it's like I don't exist when I'm in Spain. Brother said some very unkind words when DH and I said we were getting married, so that relationship is strained. However, I have decided that despite the fact that I'm not a big fan of bro's behavior and feel a little pushed away by SIL, dear sweet niece isn't going to suffer.