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I would also rather just buy gifts for kids - and drawing names for adults sounds like a good idea. With my husband's family, we have to buy for each person and not to sound ungrateful, I hate getting a bunch of stuff I'm not going to use (gift cards FTW!). I tried to put a stop to it one year but my MIL wouldn't have it.

Between my 3 sisters and our SOs it gets to be a bit crazy...last year we drew names and it was so much fun. We are doing it again this year. There's only 3 LOs (my 2 DDs and my niece) so everyone still buys for the kids. I can see as we get more kids we will draw names for them too

Adults yes. Kids, no.

We don't do adult gifts in both our families any more. We get my mom and in laws something small. Like handmade from LO small, and that's it.

We have 8 kids to buy for including our own. We just reduce the per kid budget a bit. I couldn't imagine not buying all our nieces and nephews a gift....

We don't buy for cousins kids because we don't see them around the holiday. If we did I would probably pick them up something small, $10 range.

I'd rather not buy gifts for adults, but if I had to then drawing names would be my preference.

I like buying for the kids (and there are 13 and two on the way in my family, plus our own. But I wish we drew names for adults. Parents plus step parents then 17 siblings and partners adds up!

There aren't a lot of little kids in my family, so I'm not sure about that, but for all the adults I would definitely draw names.

We draw for adults but never kids.

I don't think drawing for kids will be that bad.
Regardless of this gift exchange, the kids are all going to get something from "Santa"/parents and the gift exchange will be more meaningful and higher budget.

LO is only Grandchild so she gets something from grandparents and my newly married brother. Even if he has kids, it's only the two of us so I think we will all buy kids something up til a certain age. When I was growing up, I had tons of cousins and we had to do gift exchange. The adults still do it.

@Foodnerd81: depends! My niece and nephew are 12 and one other nephew is 10. The two boys have no concept of money and will just ask for whatever. If it's *too* expensive I just say "no, that's crazy for xyz" and they say Ok and go to the next item on their wish list. My 12 year old niece on the other hand would ask for something then immediately follow up with "but if it's too expensive you don't have to buy it for me"!!! She's such a sweetheart.
The boys have asked for a skylander starter kit thing for their Wii and the older one asked for a Nerf blaster. Their parents approved it, so that's what they're getting. For my niece I offered to take her to lunch and shopping when we're home for thanksgiving and I think she's really looking forward to it!

Draw names for sure!

We do this in DH's family. There are...going to be 7 cousins/nieces/nephews this year, anywhere from newborn to age 8. We buy each of them gifts for about $10-$30 each. A pair of pajamas, a book, etc. And we draw names for all the adults and put a $50 cap on it. If there were a TON of little kids, yeah, we'd probably draw names for them. But 7 is manageable. So we spend about $250, I'd say, on gifts for everyone. Some casino chips for DH's grandparents, we take MIL to dinner....we do the $50 gift, then some kid gifts. Christmas isn't an astronomical expense, this way! Plus, I think kids get way too much crap, anyways....and I find myself "buying them a gift just to buy them a gift" instead of it being something they really want.

@Bao: Did they say why?

My brother was kind of annoyed when I suggested that we buy just for the kids (he and my SIL were expecting that year). But now, it's so much easier. I don't know what they do on my SIL's side of the family but there are more kids on that side than on ours.

@Bao: You are much nicer than me!

@Bao: I think it's really kind of crappy that your siblings are essentilly forcing you to buy presents for their kids when you've told them it's a financial burden. I'm sorry

@Bao: can you cut out the adult gift exchange?

We draw names on my side of the family for the nieces/nephews. There are 11 of them though. We decided we'd rather our kids get one nice gift instead of 10 smaller/not as nice gifts. Plus, less expense on the gift givers and my siblings and I all realize that Christmas is expensive enough.

@Bao: I like buying gifts for my nieces and nephews but I don't have a price n mind really - they each get ONE gift. It may be a $8 gift I got on clearance or a $20 gift. I don't think anyone needs to know what you spent.

As for the adults - we don't get gifts

It's definitely hard as the family grows! On my side, we always did just kids. But on my husband's side they bought for everyone. Well, the family began expanding and we are now up to 11 grandkids with one on the way on that side. The wives finally said no more presents for the siblings and spouses - only kids and grandparents. That's even a lot! We tried having the adults pick names and capping the gift at $40. That didn't work because one sister was cheap and said she wanted a $20 cap. Well she got a $20 gift while everyone else spent a little more on each other.

My husband also used to give Easter gifts to his nieces/nephews. That worked when it was 3 of them. Not now! I told him I'm not making Easter baskets for 13 extra kids (both sides) besides my own.