Hellobee Boards

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.

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.

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!

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.

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.

eta- we also do small stocking stuffers for everyone, but usually items are less than $5.

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!

@charmed: That's a fun idea!

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.

There's no one under 18 in my husband's family (except our son), so we just exchange names.

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.

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....

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.

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.

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.
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.

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.

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.

We draw names for adults.

Then, the kids are divided out - and you never buy for your own kids. It mostly equates to godparents buying for godkids.

Good luck - I wish we could get everyone to agree to this!

I tried getting my siblings with kids to just get gifts for each others kids but they got us stuff anyway