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Last Christmas, just after we were engaged, we decided to give all our
gifts together. We both have small families (each of has our parents, one
sibling with a spouse and two kids, and I have an aunt who is part of the
"christmas gift" circle) although there are five December family
birthdays thrown in, and we buy gifts for several closer
brother/sister-like friends.
In my family, there is probably a minimum of $50 spent on any
gift-package to anyone else, ranging up to $100. My parents spend more
on their grandchildren and sometimes more on us. I usually spend around $250 total on my brother, sister-in-law and two kids, $200 on my father
and mother (includes a birthday gift for dad), that sort of thing. We always
buy birthday gifts for one another; John's family never does (odd card or
phone call is it.)
So when buying gifts with John for his family we spent around the same
amounts as we spent on mine; everyone seemed to like their presents.
But this year, we've received a terse e-mail from his sister saying that we
should keep our spending to $50 for their family ("Ideally, $20 per
family").
Now I know there are people who spend a lot more than I do on Christmas
gifts and that this sort of thing is always relevant to income. But this
appears to be a matter of style; my family is less-well-off than John's, at
all levels.
We've decided to give more gifts to my family and get smaller, token items
for John's because that seems to be what they want. John is fine with us
spending more on my side than on his; but is this a common difficulty when
you're now part of two families as an engaged/newly married couple? How
do you adjust? (and let's not even get into the fact that my family dresses
up spiffy for Christmas, and his doesn't; I discovered this when, the first
Christmas we spent together, I showed up at his family gathering in a skirt
and dressy blouse, and they all looked at me like I was a martian
Anyone running into big differences with family gifts expectations at Christmas? |
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Sounds like we're doing what you're doing. My fiance family is a) all
over the place, and b) disjointed/dysfunctional. Both sides of his
family (his mom's / dad's) seem to do similar things: pick a day over the
holidays to get together, and exchange moderate gifts, opened in the
mid-afternoon. And, Julian (my fiance) does not even see each family
every year -- and this affects the gift giving. IE = last year we were
apart, because he flew to Vancouver, BC to see him mom, and I was in
Toronto, ON with my family before flying to England. Because he wasn't'
around, he didn't see his dad's family, and neither did I;. It didn't
dawn on me until much, much later that we had neglected to even send
gifts. This seems very strange to me : all my life, my uncle has lived in
the far north (the Yukon--you know? right next to Alaska, above BC?) and
we always wrapped up a package with gifts for him and my cousins (and
whatever wife he had at the time:) ). I have another out of town cousin (other side of the family) and we always sent Christmas parcels to them
to, and *they* reciprocated, too. So, it seeed wierd to me not to bother
with a gift just because you weren't going to see family face-to-face.
Back to the dilemma of 'type/expense of gifts: We tend to give Julian's
family (both sides) cheaper gifts, since Christmas is not a big deal to
them, and they don't go all out on us, either. the gifts tend to be more
tokens , "I was thinking of you gifts" than the "what I knew you'd always
wanted" type gifts. For this reason we have no remorse about shopping for
them *on* boxing day, since the malls are going to be open (thanks to our
damned so-called premier!) and we won't be seeing them until the 27th.
I do the shopping for my family, and help Julian with gifts for his
family, since I'm a Christmas shoppin' elf. I love picking out presents,
and love to wrap things, too!
My family's gifts are more elaborate, partly because Christmas is a
bigger deal, and also because my parents do so much for the both of us.
They honestly do more for Julian than his own parents do (for whatever
reason). Since my parents have been such good kiddies this year, I thought
we'd get something nice instead of just popping coal into their stockings
I totally understand the dressing up thing, too! Julian and I had a
screaming match on our first Christmas day together, because he thought he
wouldn't bother with his suit and tie for Christmas dinner, even though
I'd asked him to. I was shocked, especially since he already knew we had
dressed up for Christmas Eve. On the other hand, his family dresses down (from my perspective). I love dressing up over the holidays, but
apparently wearing a holiday sweater and jeans was appropriate for a
Christmastime celebration with them.
I guess, to answer your query about what we're doing about family
gifts/styles, is to take the cue from what the family does. There's no
reason to get into bidding wars -- or use the equation amount of money on
gift = how much we love them. I know you weren't implying you were doing
that, but if that equation doesn't exist/isn't used, then there should be
no problem spending more on one family and the other, if that's the way
they do things.
We've even been known to spend less on different members of the family,
depending on how much the perfect gift cost. For instance, last year, my
mom's gift cost half what my dad's did but we knew he just wouldn't mind (if he ever figured it out!)
Are you sure you're not married to my husband John? It sounds pretty
familiar! This is our second Christmas trying to appease the family
holiday gods...my MIL is a rant in and of herself...and we've just hit
the point where we do what's traditional for each side of the family.
My family buys tons of gifts for each other and spends weeks decorating
and buying/wrapping gifts and his family buys one (maybe two) very
practical gift for each other (lots of cotton underwear all around ;)
I also have a very large extended family who are very close whereas his
is just the opposite. Same goes for dressing up - my family goes all
out and his generally sits around in sweats. Point being that every
family has it's own style and traditions and trying to change them is
only going to end in one very non merry Christmas. Marriage is all
about learning to roll with the punches. |
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