First year I didn't buy Christmas presents. How about you? Any problems?

[k_mcsparin]

Just want to celebrate that I managed to stop the gift buying this year.  No wrapping, no shipping, no worrying about what people want. It felt a little weird to receive gifts -- hopefully no one is offended.  I just say "my husband and I stopped exchanging gifts."  It makes the holidays so simple and not stressful.

[Villanelle]

Did you tell them advance that you were forgoing gifts, or did you just not send anything?

[Zikoris]

We stopped doing gifts several years ago. No problems. It makes the holiday season way less stressful.

[Travis]

Generally the adults in my family don't exchange gifts, but my wife still tries to put some thought into a few of them. All of the grandmothers get a decorated box of chocolate covered prunes, my sister and her husband get a restaurant gift card as a thank you for hosting Christmas eve, DW's mom gets her NatGeo subscription renewed, and my niece and nephews get gift cards. I'll keep that up until they graduate college in a few years. Everyone else just gets a family photo christmas card. It's still a little more expensive than I'd prefer, but I figure the simplicity is a good start. My sister in law and one of my wife's coworkers are having babies next year, so we gifted them some of my son's stuffed animals and books we hadn't yet phased out. I'm looking forward to being at the no-gift point or finding more practical things to do instead (tonight one of my nephews asked me to teach him how to invest).

[accolay]

My wife and I asked people not to give us anything and we're not getting anything for each other and it works fine for us. We'd rather save the money for a nice trip or something anyway. We actually wanted to buy the Nintendo Classic as a joint gift to ourselves, but not interested in spending 100-1000+% for one off ebay. (I laugh at the people who bought them in bulk)

[totoro]

My husband and I don't exchange gifts.  We have more than everything we need and gifts are not how we show we care.  I think gifts are great for people who appreciate this gesture a lot, but we love having less at this point in life.

[appleblossom]

My partner and I generally don't exchange gifts. However I did get him a small gift this year to replace a headset that broke last week. He would have spent the money anyway, so why not wrap it up? We don't feel the pressure to buy something extravagent just because it's christmas, although if there was something he really wanted/needed I would get it, but we are rarely in that situation.
The exception is if we are holidaying somewhere that there is a cool activity. A few years ago we gave each other glacier walks, and another year was a trip into an active volcano. I value experiences more than stuff.

We have 2 nieces and 1 nephew, who we spend about $30 each on books or educational/science gifts.
My partners family do secret santa for the adults so we only have to buy (and recieve) 1 gift each with a limit of $50. Usually you get something that the giver has put some real thought into so that is nice.

My family don't do gifts anymore, we all just pitch in for the food and drink for the day. We found ourselves a few years ago exchanging generic gifts of approx the same value, so it became pointless.

[JoJo]

I've been telling my mom for years I don't want anything.  She would always put some kitchen gadgets or other stuff I didn't need in my stocking.  This year all I got was 4 mini Snickers bars.  Finally she got the message!

[Jakejake]

We've stopped with the gift exchanges, and I love it - not having to pay to get and ship crap other people don't want, and not having them spend money on crap I don't want or have a place to store is the best gift!

[kudy]

My uncle told me today, somewhat embarrassed, "I didn't bring anything for anyone this year" - I told him that I've never brought anything for anyone, and he was surprised... I guess sometimes people don't even notice? I generally don't participate in gift giving. I continue to receive gifts every year from the same people; hopefully they don't resent me, but if they do that's on them, not me.

[big_slacker]

I told the family today, if you're not here in person don't send gifts. Or if you want to spoil the kids team up and buy something really awesome instead of a bunch of little toys. We got an embarrassing amount of gifts (mostly for the kids) this year and it was truly too much.

[Johnez]

Every year I think to myself, never again, yet every year we end up doing a massive gift exchange. How and when do you guys approach this? I'm thinking about bringing it up next Thanksgiving.

[Villanelle]

Every year I think to myself, never again, yet every year we end up doing a massive gift exchange. How and when do you guys approach this? I'm thinking about bringing it up next Thanksgiving.

I think Thanksgiving is too late.  Many people, myself included, start shopping well before then.  I think maybe now (or n a week or so) is the perfect time to do it.  "Hey, we loved seeing everyone this year and made such special memories.  SO (if you have a partner and I have been talking about how special it is to spend time with everyone, and we've decided that next year, we want to focus on that, and we aren't going to be exchanging presents."  (I'd use the "wont' be exchanging" language because it implies both that you won't be giving them gifts, and kind of asks them not to bring gifts for you, without spelling that out since they are certainly welcome to give gifts if they want.)  Then I'd follow up next year about the beginning of November, with a reminder. 

When we stopped with the ILs, except for the kids, we didn't think of it at holiday time, but we brought it up in October, so hopefully no one would have started shopping.  They aren't planners, so it wasn't much of a risk.  My mother, OTOH, starts her Christmas shopping for the next year a the after-Christmas sales. 

[Prairie Gal]

My kids and I drew names and did Secret Santa this year. It was awesome. Only one gift to buy and receive. We used drawnames.com, and you can also post your wish list on it, which is great.

[I'm a red panda]

I bought 1 gift, socks for my Dad.
I regifted a spendypants S'well water bottle to my sister that I hot from work, but made a personalized water bottle.
All nieces and nephews got money. They'll thank me when they are older.
In laws got a gift card to the grocery store.
Mom got a charitable donation.

So no stuff, but still cost me some money.

(I got bath mats from my sister, a check from my parents)

[Mezzie]

I haven't bought physical gifts for ages. I did find out yesterday that my niece doesn't understand the science behind static electricity, though, so I'll take her to the science museum next week. I've also made a bit of a tradition of taking my family to a movie or show (this year, and possibly several years in the forseeable future: Star Wars). I gave my young cousins some nice journals that I already had (I have a stationery addiction I'm trying to break), and I'd like to invite them along for the science museum excursion.

I don't mind spending money on the people I love; in fact, I thoroughly enjoy it. I simply don't want to burden them with *stuff*. As the daughter of a hoarder who herself has to fight hoarding tendencies daily, I cannot in good conscience give others things that they'd have to maintain, pack, or agonize over throwing/giving away.

[Davids]

Being Jewish this has never been an issue for me...

[thedayisbrave]

Didn't buy any Christmas gifts this year per se but did buy my brother's plane ticket back home from California (with credit card reward points of course).

I don't usually do gifts.  Boyfriend and I talked about it and I told him I didn't want to do gifts this year but we probably will next year.

My aunt/uncle got me an expensive sweatshirt they knew I wanted and while I felt a little guilty at first, I remembered that a year or two ago I threw a hefty chunk of $$$ into my cousin's 529 so I feel like that kind of counts....

[ketchup]

I bought zero gifts this year, and luckily only received a few shirts from my parents, an awesome dorky mug from my sister, and an Amazon gift card from one relative.  So, part of that Amazon gift card is going to be recycled back into buying some books for my sister that'll arrive at her house tomorrow.  And my GF is having her gift to my family be a new family photoshoot sometime soon (she's a pro photographer).  Close enough.

[Tris Prior]

We stopped buying gifts for people a while ago. Except for Boyfriend's dad and stepmom, unfortunately. We tried handmade gifts - Stepmom turned up her nose at hers. They have dietary restrictions so I can't send them food, like I do for my mother's Christmas-week birthday.

I feel stuck because his dad always sends us a VERY generous check at the holidays. It feels wrong not to reciprocate that somehow, and he won't stop sending the money - we've tried asking him not to but the checks just get bigger. First world problems, I know.

So, every year we take a bit of his check and use it to buy them a couple gift cards to restaurants they like (they eat all meals out and do not cook). I guess that's a compromise. They certainly do not need more Stuff. But I really wish we could opt out entirely.

[Milizard]

We're cutting back, which is nice.  Just doing wine/beer for the BIL/SIL/FIL party next weekend.  The kids are getting cash.  Cut back on the rest of the adult gifts as well.  It's very nice.  I hate the gift part of the holidays.  I stress way too much over it all.

[SCUBAstache]

Nothing this year. I think last year I got the boyfriend a garlic peeler of some sort, and some other kitchen gadget.

I feel a LITTLE bad for not getting the nieces/nephews something, but there are SO many of them now, and they have SO much crap. I think I'd prefer to just give them some cash when they graduate high school and call it a day. I started contributing $10/month in stocks for my little brothers, and I look forward to showing them how much that grows over time.

Now, if I have children I will get them a few things. Maybe 3-4 nice presents, instead of a bunch of plastic crap. But of course this means I will have children who beg me for plastic crap all year. Mostly I like the idea of making holiday memories with kiddos: baking cookies, watching Christmas movies, singing songs, playing in the snow, etc. Hopefully I'll be FIRE by then and hanging out at home.

ETA: Also, since I was away from family, I took advantage of the time off to watch Minimalism: A Documentary About the Important Things. I'm already on the minimalism bandwagon as I suspect many of you are (indeed there is a nice venn diagram of the MMM and Minimalist communities) so while not many new insights I still enjoyed watching it!

[VladTheImpaler]

I have the Walmart App on my phone and scan the receipt for Savings Catcher, so I had $13 in Reward dollars. I bought 3 toys from Walmart for my kid and nephew that totaled $45, used the rewards dollars (scanned a barcode on my phone) so only spent $32 at Walmart.
Then I went to the dollar store and grabbed about $14 worth of stocking stuffers (including candy and new toothbrushes/ toothbrush carry cases)
Total amount spent on Christmas this year <$50.