https://boards.hellobee.com/ Pregnancy, Baby and Parenting blog, by Hellobee en Sun, 05 Apr 2026 00:29:59 +0000 https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/how-did-you-implement-drawing-names-for-christmas#post-1892115 Tue, 07 Oct 2014 15:06:34 +0000 Mrs. Tiger 1892115@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Good luck - I wish we could get everyone to agree to this! </p> <p>I tried getting my siblings with kids to just get gifts for each others kids but they got us stuff anyway :/ </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/how-did-you-implement-drawing-names-for-christmas#post-1892111 Tue, 07 Oct 2014 15:05:21 +0000 mrs. tictactoe 1892111@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>With my mom's side of the family, she is one of 6 and there are 11 grand kids and one great grand child. They draw names with just the kids and it's not a secret, everyone knows who everyone has to keep it easy. They also try to rig it so that siblings don't get each other. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/how-did-you-implement-drawing-names-for-christmas#post-1892095 Tue, 07 Oct 2014 14:56:32 +0000 AmandaB8 1892095@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>We draw names for adults. </p> <p>Then, the kids are divided out - and you never buy for your own kids. It mostly equates to godparents buying for godkids. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/how-did-you-implement-drawing-names-for-christmas#post-1892017 Tue, 07 Oct 2014 14:02:27 +0000 mrs. bird 1892017@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>When we celebrated Christmas with my extended family, on thanksgiving we would put all the adult names in one bowl &amp; the kids in another and draw. Each had a price cap too, I think it was like $75. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/how-did-you-implement-drawing-names-for-christmas#post-1892009 Tue, 07 Oct 2014 13:56:11 +0000 Bluemasonjar 1892009@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>My mom's family has been doing this for as long as I can remember but only her siblings and their spouses are included in the exchange. My aunts/uncles don't buy gifts for the kids, that is up to Santa. I do have 1 aunt that gifts an ornament each year which was cool because it gave me a nice collection for when I moved out and got my own tree. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/how-did-you-implement-drawing-names-for-christmas#post-1891923 Tue, 07 Oct 2014 13:25:08 +0000 ChiCalGoBee 1891923@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@Tanjowen: We used elfster.com (an online SS exchange site). You can put in the names an email addresses, and even put restrictions on who people can/can't get (e.g. we set it so my husband and I can't get each other in the family gift exchange, my brother and SIL can't get each other, etc.). You can also put up "wish lists" there, clothing sizes, etc. It was nice because everyone got what they really wanted, and we only had to shop for one person. Now that LOs are coming about they'll get presents from everyone, but this has worked so well for the adults that we'll keep doing it this way in the future! </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/how-did-you-implement-drawing-names-for-christmas#post-1891912 Tue, 07 Oct 2014 13:19:07 +0000 redeyedtreefr0g 1891912@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>My family usually does an intimate Christmas gathering where the kids open presents with their parents, then everyone goes and meets in one spot- it used to be at Grandma's, but we're big enough now that there are two Aunts with larger houses that we go to- they swap Thanksgiving at one, Christmas at the other from year to year.</p> <p>It's generally understood that Christmas is for children, so they get the focus of gift-giving. It's generally not expected that everyone buy gifts for the kids, but they get a lot from closer aunts, uncles, their respective grandma and of course my grandma, who is Great to them. For instance, I've never bought gifts for my cousin's kids, but I would for my niece and nephew.</p> <p>There is also usually a great crafty-gift exchange. Sometimes it's a simple care package (just as movie night stuff, tea and coffee pack, etc) or a neat craft someone did. Every major family/couple gets one.<br /> My favorite cousin once made Christmas trees with a figurine or two standing on the large bottom circle beneath a small top circle. The structure was hidden with garland and had lights in it, and there was fishing line strung from the bottom circle to the top to create a beautiful "tree" shape with halos of light reflecting off the fishing line.</p> <p>Every other year, my grandmother has enough quilts to do a giveaway. They can range in size, but are always hidden in handmade pillowcases. It's quite funny to see family members jostling for favorite pillowcases. We use a version of a christmas story with lots of Mr./Mrs Right leaving to do things to pass them around. Sometimes there is an exchange after we all get to open our pillowcase, and we display each one to the others so we can all admire grandma's creations. She keeps track of who gets which designs. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/how-did-you-implement-drawing-names-for-christmas#post-1891895 Tue, 07 Oct 2014 13:13:16 +0000 LuLu Mom 1891895@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>We started drawing names for the kids this year, my sisters and I each have two (well I have one on the way) so each kid has a name of a cousin.) My younger sister was upset about this, but my older sister and I decided we would like to purchase higher quality gifts for 2 kids instead of all four nieces/nephews and doing this helped. Plus the kids get so many gifts from us, grandparents, and other drawings that it helps eliminate extra and unnecessary stuff. </p> <p>We do a white elephant drawing for my sisters and our husbands, just fun little $15 gifts. </p> <p>On DH we still buy for everyone, but that's because it's a much smaller family with less people. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/how-did-you-implement-drawing-names-for-christmas#post-1891834 Tue, 07 Oct 2014 12:49:11 +0000 blackbird 1891834@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Adults swap napes at Thanksgiving but for the 4 kids (E and her 3 cousins), we don't swap names. I probably spend $20 on each of the kids.... </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/how-did-you-implement-drawing-names-for-christmas#post-1891826 Tue, 07 Oct 2014 12:46:19 +0000 Mrs.KMM 1891826@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>My extended family has done this for probably a decade now because we just started getting too big to buy for everyone. At this point, we have 4 sets of Aunts/Uncles, 10 Cousins (+4 spouses) and 5 little kids.</p> <p>All the names go in a hat and we draw out one for each person (my mom does the draw every year). She makes sure that no one from the same immediate family (we define as Aunt/Uncle pair and their decedents) buys for each other since we assume they are already buying for each other for an immediate family celebration. You don't necessarily get a gift from the same person you buy for (for example, I'm buying for one of my uncles this year but one of my cousins is buying for me).</p> <p>It has worked super smoothly for us! </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/how-did-you-implement-drawing-names-for-christmas#post-1891807 Tue, 07 Oct 2014 12:38:59 +0000 BananaPancakes 1891807@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@charmed: That's a fun idea!</p> <p>We draw names for the members over 18, and buy for anyone under 18, which is a whole 3 people now. They're aging out fast and no one is procreating. My son gets spoiled because of it. </p> <p>There's no one under 18 in my husband's family (except our son), so we just exchange names. </p> <p>We've been doing this for years because we all felt Christmas was getting ridiculous. It's just so much money and buying of crap, when all we really want to do is get together. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/how-did-you-implement-drawing-names-for-christmas#post-1891781 Tue, 07 Oct 2014 12:28:42 +0000 charmed 1891781@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>We draw names for kids (under 18) in our family.<br /> Then the adults do either a male or female grab bag ($25-$30 limit) and we draw numbers to see who gets which bag (they're unmarked so you don't know who it is from). </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/how-did-you-implement-drawing-names-for-christmas#post-1891778 Tue, 07 Oct 2014 12:27:34 +0000 twodoghouse 1891778@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>We have done this for as long as I can remember for extended family and my immediate family. For extended family, we used to adult swap and kid swap but now it's all one big swap. We are old fashioned and put scraps of paper in a bowl with the names. If you pull out the name of one of your immediate family members (sibling, parent, spouse) we just threw it back in and picked a new one. If you got to the end and the last person picked their own sibling that person would just trade with a cousin. We were pretty informal though, so if you draw the same person you got last year you could choose again. I think you can set this all up on Elfster so it would automatically assign you someone that you're not related to, but my mom is one of 8 kids and there are 14 grand kids with a ton of spouses now so I think it's take forever to set it up. Scraps in a salad bowl works for us! </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/how-did-you-implement-drawing-names-for-christmas#post-1891720 Tue, 07 Oct 2014 12:05:33 +0000 photojane 1891720@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>There are 8 kids between me and my brothers families, and we're not even done expanding. The kids will be drawing names at Thanksgiving, and will help their parents pick out a gift for their selected cousin. Works nicely for me, because I only have to buy one gift! We're all buying for my parents, but don't exchange among siblings. We did cookies &amp; recipes last year, but not sure if we're doing that this year. My husbands side of the family is small, so we buy for everyone. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/how-did-you-implement-drawing-names-for-christmas#post-1891654 Tue, 07 Oct 2014 11:46:35 +0000 mrs.shinerbock 1891654@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>We buy gifts for kids until they graduate high school and swap between adults. If you have a great idea for an adult, you can claim them, otherwise, we just divide them up. There is usually a lot of discussion between my mom and sisters about what we are going get each person.</p> <p>eta- we also do small stocking stuffers for everyone, but usually items are less than $5. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/how-did-you-implement-drawing-names-for-christmas#post-1891553 Tue, 07 Oct 2014 11:18:08 +0000 Tanjowen 1891553@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>@alohaorchid: I mentioned it last year in passing and my parents acted like I was insane, so I have a feeling this isn't going to go over well either.</p> <p>@Mrs. J: The white elephant idea would be fun among the adults!</p> <p> @loki: I love the stocking idea! </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/how-did-you-implement-drawing-names-for-christmas#post-1891514 Tue, 07 Oct 2014 11:01:43 +0000 loki 1891514@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>oh also, with my husband's extended family they don't exchange gifts among the cousins but on boxing day we do a big "naughty santa"/"steal a gift" game that gets really fun with like 30 people. it might not go over well with little kids though... but i think it's much better to just bring one gift then spending hundreds on unnecessary stuff. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/how-did-you-implement-drawing-names-for-christmas#post-1891510 Tue, 07 Oct 2014 11:00:04 +0000 loki 1891510@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>we don't exchange gifts among adults but on one side of my family, all the kids used to do a name draw. once we all got older we decided we would all pitch $20 to a charity or volunteer somewhere together. i am the oldest among the "kids" so i usually have work stuff going on and i'll just donate some money. i think it's nice. but i really liked the gift exchange when the kids were all still young. </p> <p>with my parents &amp; inlaws, we have started just doing a stocking. so a $10 limit for each person and it's fun to open the stockings all together. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/how-did-you-implement-drawing-names-for-christmas#post-1891502 Tue, 07 Oct 2014 10:58:30 +0000 alohaorchid 1891502@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>Good luck! I want to implement this SO bad but my family is dead set against it. There's way too many adults and no one knows what to get anyone anymore, plus it starts to add up fast! </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/how-did-you-implement-drawing-names-for-christmas#post-1891501 Tue, 07 Oct 2014 10:58:23 +0000 Mrs. J 1891501@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>We do a swap in my husband's family, although we don't have quite so many kids (just my niece and my son). We started this a few years back, where we originally did a nice white elephant type exchange...a good gift with a price limit and you grabbed from under the tree, two steals, etc. We then decided to pull names, so we've done that for about 3-4 years now. We have a price limit, and you buy for one other adult. Both kids will get gifts like normal. </p> <p>In my mom's family, there are 17 grandkids, so what we used to do was a white elephant or a gift pass for the adults (while reading Twas the Night Before Xmas--adults passed the bags in a circle until the end) and kids drew each other's names to get a gift. One year, we donated to their charity of choice in lieu of gifts. Now, we just do one giant White Elephant because the youngest is 14. </p> <p>EDIT: With my mom's family, we were 5 grandkids, so my parents/aunt bought the nieces/nephews gifts until 21. </p> <p>Hope this makes sense/helps! </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/how-did-you-implement-drawing-names-for-christmas#post-1891487 Tue, 07 Oct 2014 10:54:10 +0000 ShootingStar 1891487@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>My ILs do this, starting with last year. When a bunch of us are together we put everyone's names in a bowl and each person chooses one. If there's someone that's not there, someone else chooses for them. I think I missed the drawing this year and DH told me I've got SIL. DS is the only child in the family and last year everyone bought him a gift in addition to the person whose name they pulled. I'm not sure if they're doing that again or not, I'm fine with it either way. </p> <p>In your situation if you have some type of get together before Christmas (maybe Thanksgiving?) I'd put all the kids' names in bowl and have each set of parents draw a name. Or you could have all the kids do a secret santa for each other. It would be pretty similar, put all the names in a bowl, but have the kids pick and then keep it a secret. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/how-did-you-implement-drawing-names-for-christmas#post-1891484 Tue, 07 Oct 2014 10:53:58 +0000 Smurfette 1891484@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>I don't buy for my Aunts and Uncles or cousins. I buy for my cousin's children, but only something $10-$15 range. There are 8, almost 9, of them. Plus 4 nephews, which we spend more on. Children are the fun ones to buy for so I won't stop that. They will get a gift till 18. </p> <p>My Aunts and Uncle's bought for us till we had kids and now DH and I don't get a gift but R does. </p> https://boards.hellobee.com/topic/how-did-you-implement-drawing-names-for-christmas#post-1891467 Tue, 07 Oct 2014 10:49:07 +0000 Tanjowen 1891467@https://boards.hellobee.com/ <p>My family has always bought gifts for Christmas for everyone in the family. This was fine when we were all in college, but now there are 4 people married in plus 9 kids, and it's getting pricey! My husband and I the past few years just bought for the kids only and our parents, but now with our own LO, we are in for a very expensive holiday.</p> <p>I really want to get them to draw names for Christmas to give gifts, but no idea how to implement this to be fair. Does one family swap for another family? Do kids swap with kids/ adults with other adults? Anyone on HB that does this, I would love to hear how your process goes. And wish me luck as I try to convince my family to do it this year! </p>