the past few years I was able to give loads of gifts to the people I love. This year, I can barely afford anything. So, my standpoint is "they'll understand. and if they don't, they don't deserve a gift anyway"
Make them some homemade bread or some cookies and put them in a lil' tin if you feel as if you shoud give something. But I agree, in this economy.....its hard for some and I think they will be understanding.
Same boat here. Our income was cut in half this year so we have enough to pay the bills and eat and thats it. We sent out Christmas cards with the kids pics in them and thats it this year. Thankfully we live 700 miles from our families so if they talk about how cheap we are, I wont be able to hear them. Ha! And we let them know that we werent sending anything so if they dont want to send anything here, thats fine. Best part is.... I dont even feel bad. Its just how life is sometimes.
same boat here-just buying for our 2 DD's and neices and nephews. No adults all though I have swapped alot of my fertile eggs and decorated eggs for awesome home made gifts by BYCer's...being broke sucks but being broke and happy is not that bad-been there before and Im sure its not the last time we'll be here. Its always feast or famine for us!
Quote:Good for you. We got out of that "buy something/whatever for so and so and so and so and so... years ago and started buying just for the children in the family who were not out of high school yet. Finally, rather than shop for the kids, we sent money. I hated the nonsensical commercial stress of Christmas shopping and ended it, but continued enjoying getting together Christmas week for dinners and parties.
We also had the plan that the family only buys for kids 18 and under. Yup, worked great for a while. Then our kids stopped getting gifts about 5 years ago when the others kids all had turned 18 (ours had not). That tells you a lot about people now don't it? I only give to those I really want to give to now. For my bosses, I gave a basket of home canned goodies and a dozen eggs. They just loved it and can't wait to share it with their family.
most people I have something for - a couple of things I've made, things I found cheaply etc. Giving eggs would be a great idea except I'm not posting them - the way our postal service has been they'd take a month to get there! (I'm in the UK, we've had postal strikes this year...) I bought a fleece dog blanket from the £1 shop and made 3 gifts out of that... so this year it's more token gifts than "here, have a sackload of presents!" which is what I've been doing for previous years. the "only buy for the children" thing is what my father's family did (he was one of 8, and they ALL had children) - but even though my parents bought for all my cousins for years while they had no children, as soon as my older brother was born the rest of the family decided that there were just too many children and that they weren't bothering any more.
