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Sounds pretty similar to me, but my parents were divorced, so I think it's pretty awesome that each still arranged for me to have a gift for the other.

I don't know how I feel about my son in the future. On the one hand, I detest random decorative crap. On the other hand, I can remember being so excited to buy presents for my family members at those little fairs at school. But definitely minimal presents.

Overall, we are a very low level present family. My husband and I generally only exchange stockings at Christmas and very occasionally we'll get the other a birthday gift, if we have something good in mind, but usually we just do a nice date. And we'll get my son stocking stuffers, but probably no other presents, at this point, because I'm sure family will get him more than he needs despite telling them he doesn't need presents.

Last year I just had LO pick out something at Target in the gift section in the men's section. She picked a tabletop pool game. I told him I needed socks so he took her to pick out socks for me. We didn't spend much but I want her to get Christmas is about giving not just receiving.

We each take them out to shop. Last year DH wanted a wallet so I picked out a couple options at the store and let them decide. When they were shopping with DH, one of them became obsessed with some Ov Gloves so he let them get it. And I do actually love those things so it worked out. They do help make presents too. For us we just want to have them get involved with giving. They do also give each other presents which is good because it means they get a little one on one time too.

Growing up, my parents got lots of useless gifts from me. I want to avoid this with DD

The plan is for DD to make ornaments each year for the adults in her life (including parents). When she gets older I am sure we will have to coerce her into it but I definitely want an ornament each year.

When I was a kid we'd make presents for aunts/uncles/grandparents, and use our money to buy small gifts for my parents, I don't think anything ever cost more than $10 or $15. I think this worked well for us - we didn't have a ton of money so the gifts were always needed and used extensively, and it was really exciting for me to see that my parents liked what I'd picked out. In the context of someone who already had as much stuff as they wanted, or had expensive tastes, I think I would favor handmade gifts or a gift that created a memory of doing something fun together as a family.

@Smurfette: That's awesome! Such a good idea - I know when I go home at Christmas my mom will still happily point out the ornaments I made for her years ago I'm really surprised some of them are still in one piece!