Have you ever had a gift-free Christmas

We don’t exchange with DH’s extended family at all. The adults all pretty much buy what we want or need and their kids are teens who have been impossible to buy for for years so we just told them a couple years ago not to bother. We never get together with them until New Year’s anyway so it makes it easier to skip it.

But with a 7 yo kid in our family, there’s no way we can do a no presents Christmas in our nuclear family. DH is a bit of a curmudgeon who would love to skip gifts all the way around (for ALL occasions, not just Christmas) but that’s not going to happen on my watch.

You could create new traditions. Breakfast and board games, or whatever. Go skiing or to the city or the beach. Exchange stuff for experience. Or as was mentioned, set a limit.

Everyone needs to be all in or it won’t work. Dh had surgery a week before Christmas, I said let’s forget about gifts for each other this year and just give to the kids. I wanted to relieve him of worry of getting me a gift when he wasn’t feeling well.

I got him a few stocking stuffers - just the snacks I normally give him. He gave me nothing as per our agreement. Even though it was my idea, my feelings were hurt that he didn’t think to give me one thing. Like he would give me a box of chocolate covered cherries every year. How hard would that be? Or to ask someone else to pick them up? And he got mad at me for making him “look like a butt” because I went against what we agreed to.

In our situation, with what we knew, it was a smart thing not to give each other gifts that one year. But if I’d known it would be our last, I might rather have said let’s each choose one meaningful thing to give each other.

We don't exchange gifts with either side of my family. Both are large. I have 20+ nieces and nephews and now grand nieces and nephews!

We tried doing a family gift exchange for a few years, but the year my nephew cried in front of me saying how much he hated what was in the family present where I was the giver, I opted out. Thankfully, it ended soon after.

I only buy for my three kids, mom, and three friends (very small gifts).

ETA: I'm giving money to my son, my daughter will know exactly what she is getting, and my youngest is special needs and truly needs very little to make him happy. Me and my husband do not buy for each other.

We give money to the grandkids, and a lesser amount to the nieces and nephews, but other than that - no gifts. DH and I don't buy gifts for each other because we tend to buy whatever we really want throughout the year. This year we bought two horses and a livestock guard dog - I don't want to spend anymore money! lol

In our family I have pared it down to the nuclear family. I buy for my two teens, usually shoes,,clothes, a little cash. I know what they like so it’s not hard to do. And they know if the don’t like it they can return it and ke3p the $$. My DH and I give each other small token gifts because we don’t need any5hing. For my parents who also need nothing whatsoever, I usually make a gourmet food basket with things I know they will use. It is stress free and I love it.

I’m slowly trying to get my extended family used to the idea. We’ve gone from buying gifts for all 25 of us to only buying one gift via secret Santa. I’m pretty sure next year I can convince everyone to just buy for the kids. And then maybe the year after that just donate our gift money and time to less fortunate families.

I don't buy for any adults at all. I only buy for my 2 DDs, 2 nieces, 2 nephews. They are all under 18. I'm very anti gift giving and receiving and my DDs are getting to be that way also.

DH and I give each other a number of presents. I like wrapping and unwrapping presents, and the tree looks nice with presents under it, so we each give each other around 10 gifts. These are overwhelmingly on the practical end. Example, DH is getting a package of new socks. And I wrap it up, and it's a gift. Sure, he could just buy some socks when he needs them, but that's not much fun. Other than each other, we only buy for my parents now. And that again is always practical or consumable.

We stopped buying/ exchanging gifts years ago. We have no children at home. DH and I just buy what we want when we want it. We certainly don't need anything. The first year it felt weird, now we're used to it. We stopped exchanging with DD, DS and their spouses when we realized, they live out of state shipping costs were crazy. So then we were exchanging gift cards, really? What fun is that? Once the grandkids came long we stopped exchanging with adult children and now we just give to grandkids and that's for Christmas as well as birthdays.

YES!  DH and I buy stuff all year that we want.  No need to wrap them!  Our stockings "from Santa" have little odds and ends that I buy and put in them.  We don't do gifts between us.  The kids get a "santa sack" with NOTHING wrapped (brilliance on my part I think) in it.  Just gifts put in there.  Less clean up, less wrapping time, less mess.  And they get stockings full of fun things like bath bombs, scrubbies, fun soaps, pencils/pens/erasers/crayons.  All consumable stuff so we're not adding to the crap we've got too much of.

Grandparents get the kids WAY more stuff than we do.  With 3 sets of grands, it's RIDICULOUS the amount of stuff the kids get.  I'm trying to get them to go for the "experience" over stuff.  Like, a month of gymnastics tuition, tickets to the zoo, take the kids to a movie, disney on ice, stuff like that.  I prefer a simple christmas.  

My parents and the outlaws get "yearbooks" of each kiddo (2 books).  My parents gift to DH and I is a $100 check each.  

We almost are completely gift free. The only hold out is my Mother who insists on buying something for me. DH opted out years ago and she respected that until this year. She really wants to get him something but he doesn't want anything and I don't have anything to suggest for her to give. There won't be surprises though because she found the wallet she wanted from me, bought it and I paid her for it. I had to pick out the lamp I wanted online and DH ordered it. I'm supposed to 'act surprised' on Christmas.

DH and I stopped exchanging years ago and we both love it. One of my friends thinks we are boring with no surprises but no one was getting surprised anyway. We all had to suggest what we wanted or get something we didn't want at all. It became just a money swap. I happily buy myself a gift sometime during the holiday season. This year it was a tablet that I'd picked out and when a deal came through I jumped on it. I"m happy to get what I want at the best price. DH is thrilled he didn't have to bother buying anything. I stopped sending gifts to my stepdaughters when they graduated from college. We give grandchildren gifts when we see them in summer.

BFF and I have never done Christmas exchange. We gift for birthdays.

For the last maybe 5 years we’ve done gift free with dh’s family. It went in stages- for quite a few years before that gifts were “optional” - you could buy or not buy whatever gifts you wanted to for whoever. There are five adult kids in dhs’s family. Some people bought gifts - some didn’t. We were some of the no-buyers. I know it sounds weird but it all worked. Dh’s family is interesting.

Now everyone is on board with no gifts. It is really nice. We have a big meal, talk, play games. No stress and time and money saved.

We still do gifts in my immediate family (my girls are 18, 21, and will just have turned 24 then). But my girls and dh are the ones ones I buy for- my extended family doesn’t do gifts either. And my bff and I haven’t exchanged in years. It really makes the holiday season better for me!

Yes! I got the idea on here that Santa doesn't wrap presents and that makes that part easier at least. Dh loves the idea of kids ripping wrapping paper so I still wrap but at least it's less. I do use gift bags for oddly shaped stuff or make dh do those :-)
He always says that the best Christmas gift is not having the stress of trying to surprise me with a gift. Gifting is my "love language" so I still buy stuff or make stuff for people but I try to limit it to cookies and Christmas treats and alcohol. Just bought 6 bottles of champagne so I'm ready for random gifting :-)

This is what we do. My dad bought what he wanted for himself. My son is buying stuff for himself. I was told to buy what I wanted for myself. We put them in giftbags and put them in the living room and Christmas Day sometime we open the gifts we bought ourselves. I am not kidding. My dad says he is too old to shop. DS gets me a gift card, I get DS a gift card, his girlfriend I don't know what we will do about her yet. Will have to think about that.