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This is how it works in DH's family. I don't mind. I buy for the other little kids, too

My family is trying to do it this way, but my little brothers and I don't want to. So we decided to just buy for each other and leave the other adults out of it.

But I don't really feel guilt about anyone buying for my LO - it was their decision to continue buying for the kids.

This is what we will probably end up doing in the near future. I think Christmas gifts are for kiddies. I'd rather spend more on gifts for all the kids in the family. Adults can buy their own stuff, and I mostly end up with gifts from my relatives that I really don't need or want anyway.

We are sort of instituting this in my immediate family this year, except I ended up getting my younger siblings (without kids) some small gifts because I know they are getting things for my babies.

Even when we are told this... we still give food items to adults. Like a box of chocolate or a hickory farm gift set. That has worked out well for us.

My family is all lop-sided about it. We only do gifts for nieces and nephews, but my siblings insisted on giving us gifts, which I guess kept it "even" in their minds. Now that we have a LO, we have told them to please only buy for him.

My brother and I had this discussion last year and decided no more gifts for us, just our kids. Neither of us are really into Christmas though, so it's more of a symbolic thing. With my DH's side of the family, he mostly deals with the gift giving, but last year he only gifted the nephews and that's the plan this year.

@Raindrop: This year I sent a gift to my husband's cousin- she's his God daughter. Well she has two siblings and my husband insisted only gifting to her. So I also sent some caramel peanut butter chocolate bark for the entire family to enjoy too. Edible gifts are so delightful!

In my family the adults draw names so we only get 1 gift for a sibling and then everyone gets a gift for my parents. And we don't do any gifts for the kids in the family. That's all fine and Zuma isn't expecting anything from anyone.... but that didn't stop me from buying a present for my nephew and all my future nieces (4 coming in 6 weeks).

I do feel bad! That is what we're doing this year in DH's family, but BIL has 4 nieces/nephews and no kids of his own. I think DH and I are going to buy him and SIL a gift anyway, and just deal with it if it upsets his other sibling

If we ever decide to do kids only with my family, I won't feel bad because my sister has kids too, so it'd be a 'fair' trade.

This is how it works on both our sides (besides our parents, we do buy them gifts, just not siblings.) We didn't start doing this until everyone had children.

On my side we only buy presents for my nieces and younger sister (19). On DH's side we buy for his parents, grandfather, 6 sets of aunts and uncles, 10 cousins, sister & bf, and 2 dogs. I want to put in place Secret Santa for next year to save some money. It gets out of hand, and none of the cousins exchange presents.

We'll get the grandparents (meaning our parents) gifts but that's about it. We just give the kids gifts.

That arrangement would make me kind of sad, but my family has recently switched to Secret Santa - so each adult just buys one gift for one other adult. I really like that - now we don't have to spend a ton of money on everyone, and each person gets one, great gift.

originally we used to buy gifts for all the adults, but it got to be too much. not enough thought was being put into what was being bought and it was like a mad rush. then kids came along and it became just buy gifts for the kids, and at most a bottle of wine per couple. I budget $50 per child (5 kids) and I bought a bottle of port and some chocolates/xmas biscuits per couple.

We have this rule with my husband's family. His sister has two kids that we buy for with the understanding that we don't buy for my SIL and her husband, and they don't buy for us.

There are no kids on my side of the family so it's not really an issue yet.

We just dropped the drawing names this year with my mom's family. Honestly it's a huge relief, because only one person in the group ever spent anything close to the budgeted amount. We always did, so it felt we were just spending a bunch for nothing. And I know it is NOT about the amount, but these are people we rarely see and barely know, so trust me, they weren't super thoughtful gifts (except for the one person). I think me and the one other person were the only ones who had gifts as a love language, so the rest just didn't care. Though since these are all cousins, not siblings, we don't buy anything for their kids so I'm pretty sure that whole story is irrelevant to the question. Our parents all still exchange gifts in addition to buying for the actual kids (so not us, just the teen and below crowd). But it really sucks because my mom is super broke and can NOT afford to be buying for that many people, but they won't drop it (they also are both married so double the income for them, and twice as many gifts for her to buy). She may just buy for the kids this year and let her siblings do what they want.

My siblings are 12 and 15, so no kids, and we buy stuff for them. I expect we'll continue with that until they have their own income and then they can decide whether they want to continue.

DH's siblings we haven't bought gifts for since we got married (so it's been at least 5 years), but we do buy something small for our niece, and I'm pretty sure his brothers do too. I would expect something from his sister and one brother for sure once we have kids. I think DH kind of resents being expected to buy something for a 3 year old who barely knows who we are (we've met her like 4 times, ever), but I just think it's right. At least she knows her uncle cares enough to think of her on Christmas and her birthday, even if we live far away. I do know his sister absolutely expects it, and I'm pretty sure she resents that we don't spend more. But the kid is unbelievably spoiled so she is NOT hurting on gifts and toys.

I have no idea why I wrote this novel. None of it really addressed the issue of feeling bad about it one way or the other. All that to say, yes, everyone in my family buys siblings kids, some also buy for each other, and I would consider it normal and wouldn't feel guilty.