Bah humbug, Christmas conundrum, need advice

I feel you!! I bought all my nephews gifts for many years at Christmas time. I spoiled them too. The moment I had kids....my siblings decided we aren't buying for the kids anymore. One year before I got married and had kids, my sister came to me and said that she and her husband couldn't afford to buy gifts for the siblings that year. I was totally okay with that. Holidays are not about going in debt. So on Christmas eve we all gather at her house. She starts handing out gifts to my parents, my grandmother, my brother, my sister in law, nephews and I literally sat there as the only person without a gift. I felt so stupid and a tiny bit hurt. And the gifts she bought for my brother and his wife weren't cheap either. A few days after Christmas she comes over and hands me this little gift saying she felt bad I didn't get anything. I'm guessing someone said something to her. I open up and it's a purse....a used purse, on that I know she had for awhile.

It's a good teaching lesson that it is about giving, not receiving. I learned early on to let it go. There is a 20 year age difference between my first and last nephews/nieces. The youngest got less and they survived.

Due to this year being such an unusual one in every way, why don't you suggest that everyone skip presents? It sounds like it will be too difficult for the 2 sisters to do it the way you have been. I'm surprised you are going ahead with such a large gathering with elderly relatives there and I would imagine that some of the family will not make it due to covid, perhaps even at the last minute. It could turn out that some children won't receive a gift on the day due to someone not coming which could create even bigger problems.

Perhaps the 3 siblings could share the expense of a group gift/activity/special food or something like that for everyone to enjoy instead of presents? Covid makes that more difficult, but maybe you could come up with something. In our family we switched to activity based presents (tickets to things, a nice dinner at home, a planned hike, etc) at first and then to no presents. It really takes the pressure off of trying to find the perfect gift for people who don't need anything. It depends on the age of the kids, the weather where you are, etc, but renting a bounce house, renting out a movie theater or even just showing a special movie for everyone to watch together and having treats, solving a mystery or doing a treasure hunt with a prize for everyone at the end, an outdoor scavenger hunt, building snowmen or forts, etc. I bet the kids would love doing an activity with everyone. We have a lobster dinner instead of a traditional holiday meal. It's a perfect year to start a new tradition!

 This totally happened to us. We bough gifts for years for my dh's sisters' kids and then once we had our kids they decided it took too much time and energy to buy gifts and that we weren't going to do it any more. They also go all out for each other's birthdays and nothing for dh and I. His parents are guilty of doing it too. They make a huge effort for those grandkids, but for our kids that they actually see they barely do anything. 

Proof once again that Christmas is just a made up commercial holiday. I don’t even buy even-steven for my own two children. I guess they’re going to be scarred for life.

I have a list with dollar amounts for each gift.  I make sure they match down to about 5 bucks.  My parents did that for us and it kept any hard feelings from happening.  I don't know if there would have been hard feelings because we all knew my parents wanted things to be equal.

You wouldn't think I would be but I'm a total grinch about extended families having to buy for one another. It's just gotten crazy. No one in my family is going without anything. If anything we make the least amount of money of the bunch. We also have five kids so we have a lot of kids to buy for at Christmas on our own. Without having to include our nieces and nephew and parents and siblings.

I was just saying today that it always makes me feel bad that his mother and sister buy so much for us at the holidays and I have to gift them what I can afford. And when someone has to ask me what to buy for me that makes it even sillier in my opinion.

I promise you I'm not really a grinch. I love all the holiday traditions. I'm just tired of saving up so much money to cover the holidays (it could literally be a vacation for us) and then feeling like I still didn't do enough.

And??? Still not a good idea for all those people to gather in one place..  

My siblings and I stopped exchanging gifts at least 20 years ago. Not one of us needs anything. There are 5 nieces and nephews between my two brothers ( I don't have any). One niece has two little boys and informed all of us they need nothing. This is a hard holiday season as it's the first without my dad and he was ill the last two Decembers so we have all cut back. None of us need a darn thing. Just enjoy the day. Be thankful that you can be together because many won't be able to because of COVID etc.  

It doesn't, but I prefer to do it this way.  We are all shaped by our current and previous experiences. I have seen things be unequal and there have been hard feelings in many families.  I prefer to avoid this. It works for us.

My in laws treat my kids like the step kids that they are. My kids know to be gracious, but more often than not, they get stuff they can’t use. This year my MIL said she was getting her other grandkids (who are just as hard to buy for) gift cards and said my kids love when they get a gift card from my sil. Mil jumped on that so this year should be pretty decent.

IM sorry you feel slighted by the decision not to exchange for everyone but it’s likely your sil knew your position considering you are the one they’re stressing out about with you lovely large family.

Honestly if I had nine kids (and I wish I did!) I’d have a special day with them and let them exchange amongst each other. Turn it into a party.

My brother withdrew from Christmas giving when my sister started doing Foster parenting and adopted 3 more on top of it. He had one kid but was buying for 20. I had 3 kids myself so I could see his point. He simply could not afford it. But he still wanted to get together and eat and spend time together.

Agree. It's a good time to do so. 
It's unfortunate that they didn't include you in decision making, but buying for that many kids is also so expensive. If there are income disparities between the siblings, that's a big financial hit.
The kids will be OK. Drawing names is a good way to do it.

Interesting how different families do things. My mother's extended family always drew names. The adults (my mom, her siblings, their spouses) exchanged among themselves, the kids (me, my sister, our cousins) among themselves (paid for by our parents). Except we all brought presents for our grandparents, and they had a gift for everyone. There were 12 grandchildren over 9 years, and as we all turned 18, we moved into the adult pool for names. As we got older still, and started having our own families, we moved away from drawing names because no longer did everyone make our Christmas date their priority, so no one wanted to draw names if it turned out the person you were buying for wasn't going to make it.

So now, among the adults (because my generation is now all adults), we do a "white elephant" type exchange (nice gifts, not joke gifts). The name draw for the kids (now the cousins' kids) continued for a bit until someone had a brilliant idea to have kids' parents just bring a gift or two for the kids, which the parents all seem to really like. The kids don't care who it's from, just that they get a present. The parents like it because they can buy what fits their budget, and if for some reason you can't make it, then no one's missing out on the gift you were supposed to bring for them.

Quite frankly I’m wondering why YOU didn’t see the inequality in the gift giving in your family and propose a solution to lessen the stress & financial burden for your family members years ago. While I agree they should’ve included you & your husband in the discussion, I suspect they anticipated your reaction and decided to present it fait accompli.

If you want to focus on gift giving, why not “adopt” a less fortunate family with young children & have the grandchildren help select gifts for them? As they get older take them to volunteer at a local soup kitchen or homeless shelter. Follow that with a family meal to celebrate the holiday.

Please don’t allow materialism to influence a child’s self-worth or the spirit of a holiday.