You guys, the holidays are kicking my ass. See, I used to be an only child. And then the parents divorced, Mama Mouse remarried and my dad remarried. I acquired five stepbrothers and stepsisters. And then some of THEM got married. And then I got married. And what with one thing and another, He-Mouse and I now have 18 people in our immediate family. Micies, I am not even counting people like cousins and aunts and uncles, even the ones we're close with. I'm talking four grandparents, seven parents, five stepbrothers and sisters, two stepbrothers/sisters-in-law, two foster siblings, three nieces and nephews, and a partridge in a pear tree.
By the way, if any of those people are reading this, please GO AWAY until after Christmas, or you will ruin the surprise.
So Christmas, which is one of my favorite holidays, is suddenly very very complicated and expensive. The result of this family expansion is that He-Mouse and I can't afford to buy real presents for anybody, and that there is no chance at all of seeing everybody on Christmas. We are doing some good boundary-setting this year by not going ANYWHERE, simultaneously recognizing our own exhaustion (we've had not a single two weekends in a row in our house since August), and establishing that we aren't on some kind of unbreakable Christmas rotation that has nothing to do with the needs of our own, new little family.
But, dudes. I'm running out of inexpensive ways to do Christmas. Even my little sister spends in the neighborhood of $40 per person, but she's buying for seven people. If we did that, our tab would be $720 (unthinkable on our budget).
I've had a good string of inexpensive gifts. Last year, I hoarded our wedding photos, not letting them circulate until people received little personalized Shutterfly albums on Christmas. The year before that, we sent s'mores kits. Before that, I used my grad student skills to send PDF albums of newspaper articles (in page view) from the day each person was born.*
This year, I'm sending goodies, thanks to ideas from the Nosy Bitches** on Twitter. Fleur de sel caramels, four kinds of biscotti (of which this and this are the winners), and two kinds of granola (this one, btw, is like crack!). But, frankly, I feel cheap. Even though we're pairing this with a new strategy, in which everybody gets something small and then the people we actually SEE in a given year get bigger gifts, I can't help feeling really shitty about it. I am a person who loves giving presents, and not to sound snotty, but I have a highly refined and enormously successful gift-giving compass. I'm excellent at picking things out for people, and goddammit, if I had $800, I could rock this list. I've suggested drawing names, secret Santa, and any number of other strategies, but other people, who actually have money, overrule these attempts. Sigh.
Any ideas about holiday guilt and budget shopping?
* This is way more expensive then you would think, because it involves Kinko's.
** For those of you who don't know, this is a term of endearment.
(Image from Martha)
Posts
12 nibbles:
Every year I'm kind of glad I DON'T celebrate Christmas because my giant-ass family would put me in debt. (They're all so selfish in that "we're going to get married AND have babies" kind of way... ;)
But I know I would be thrilled to receive a box of goodies. There's more love in homemade stuff anyway. Good luck!
~Stop Me if You've Heard This One
Hey, we draw names in our four children four significant others six nieces and nephews pod. And that's just MY side of the family:). Not for lack of financial resource per se, but from lack of time and attention. No one minds, as it turns out, one bit. Then, those of us who are together on the day open stockings. Rule is everyone has bought one stocking present for every other person who's there. Works a charm.
Kinda the same as LPC here. Himself's family does two Secret Santas: one for the immediate family and one for the cousins (of which there are like, 30 or something completely silly). So between the two of us, we end up buying four gifts for their entire family. It's very manageable. For my family, I've starting to give food. It's easy, I love being in the kitchen, and it's a gift that practically guarantees people will like/use/consume it.
@Justine Thanks. I hope you're right about that!
@LPC See, your family sounds very orderly and logical. I need to get that going for us.
@Kimberly I WANT TO DO SECRET SANTA SOOOOO BAD
Even when I was making money instead of going to grad school, I found people appreciated edible gifts or experiences way more than things - baking cookies, making fudge, writing a note for an extra hike just-the-two-of-us were the things people liked. Everyone has too much stuff to begin with anyway!
Yeah, I love our enormous and complicated families, but the gift giving can be a headache. Which is sad, because I love gifts.
We've migrated to doing stockings only and we all contribute. So each couple or individual gets a stocking and we all bring little things to tuck in there. It gives us a bit of leeway because my mom can still buy gifts for everyone like she wants to, my little sister can just put a few homemade cookies in there and everyone else can vary depending on how they're sitting financially that year. I always do an edible gift for everyone and then if I think of something genius for one particular person, I can buy it and put it in their stocking and it isn't nearly so obvious that I got something for them and not something equal for everyone else.
Some years some people get more stuff, and that's fine. And we all sort of open our stockings at the same time, which makes for a happy bustle and lots of chatter and no awkwardness.
It's working out well for us so far. I think this is our third year.
Of course, I can't get all our extended families on board, so we still do some traditional gift exchanges and I honestly don't enjoy them very much anymore because they can be so stressful.
FIVE GOOOOOLD RIIIIIINGS.
There are 30 of us. The grown-ups (ahem, my parents' generation--I'm not allowed to draw names) draw names for the adults and everyone gets something for each of the children (my generation), unless they don't.
I buy stocking stuffers for my immediate family, send handwritten letters to everyone I don't see, and give something small/yummy/thoughtful (caramels, your amazing crack nuts, etc.) to people I actually see. There are exceptions to this, but I can't--and won't--buy for everyone.
Don't feel cheap, lady. Feel thoughtful.
(30 of us on ONE SIDE. We don't talk to the other side, which simplifies things at Christmas.)
HOW IS YOUR ASS.
We have limited gift-giving to the kids, only. No siblings, half-siblings, parents, grandparents. It's still a burden, but at least it's not nearly as bad as it used to be.
On the other hadn, the gift-giving at the office is out of control.
I made preserves and marmalade this year, which I'm hoping will go over well with our very large family. It's easy to get a big batch together and not expensive once you buy the canning equipment. And people are impressed that you made it yourself, because not many people do anymore! Or not many people in our family, anyways. Plus, you can do small special batches of things for specific people if you want. My dad loves really spicy salsa, so I made him a few jars of hot jalapeno salsa this summer with peppers and tomatoes from the garden. He loved them (they were a birthday present last month). Canned goods are also handy for hostess gifts or other last-minute small presents. I think they're going to be my new Christmas gift go-to!
@EB I like this. Being anti-wasteful consumerism is another good reason to do edibles...
@Rachel OH OH stockings only is good.
@Ads OH OH handwritten letters is a good idea, too...
@Sarah Effing a.
@Lauren I obviously need to make like Dutchess Kate and do some preserves. I'm concerned that this will involve way more kitchen talent than I have.
Post a Comment