Christmas gifts: giving and receiving

A member asked to have this community thread started on Christmas gifts.

• What do you want for Christmas?

• What are you planning on giving?

My family did away with gifts once we were all grown up. I guess if I had kids, I would get gifts for them. But I always hated shopping for gifts (not spending money, trying to figure out what to buy). So now we each just buy what we want for ourselves.

The office sometimes does Secret Santa and I participate in that. Everyone writes what they want, so it's easy.

quality over quantity for sure. I am trying to support small businesses and shops so Im doing online stuff through places like etsy.

I actually bought my own gifts this year.... a soup maker and Sketchers. They equal to my Sister's gift from my parents. So that's fine they don't need to worry about me.

I have bought my Sister the Friends lego set and my Dad a Floppy disk reader. I want to buy my Mum a gift but don't want to upset anyone

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I’m not sure what I’ll be giving. No one ever tells me what they want so it’s usually just gift cards. But my nephews always know what toys they want. So far I’m getting a new pair of Vibes ear plugs, an abs floor roller machine, and a red hoodie. For myself I got a new pair of jeans and a bottle of an exclusive Mountain Dew.

lots of girly things: red lipstick, red nail pollish, my favorite perfume, a dvd box set of the animated tv series voltron and the new album by ed sheran. I don't have anyone to buy me these things, and I can't aford them all, so I will just order a few essential things and that will be it

I won't be giving anything. I have no one to buy me stuff, their for I have no one to give to

My requests for gifts this year were simple, an inexpensive muffin tin and Vanilla Bean Noel body wash from Bath and Body Works.

I'm probably going to mostly give gift cards this year. Plans for getting together with people I usually give gifts are up in the air. I can always drop gift cards in the mail.

I just buy for my daughter and her family. My grandson is hard as he doesn’t play with toys anymore. So I got him a fidget cube and Xbox gift card. My granddaughter is easier. She’s getting a karaoke microphone, brave princess ( she has red hair) play doe, and a few more things I forgot what. My daughter and son-in-law are getting Amazon gift cards. Mum is hard to buy for cause she doesn’t want anything. I buy her things she needs over the corse of the year. So I’m just going to get her a nice card. My sister and bil will get a pair of wine, one white one red.

Me, there’s nothing I really want. A gift card for an art class at artworks maybe.

Be careful with Etsy. Lately people buy in bulk from Amazon or Homegoods or direct from China and sell on there pretending it’s a local shop and homemade goods. Sad.

My husband and I buy for each other and the kids/grandkid. No one else. I do buy for my BFF I work with. We buy for each other

Quote:

Originally Posted by divine1966 Be careful with Etsy. Lately people buy in bulk from Amazon or Homegoods or direct from China and sell on there pretending it’s a local shop and homemade goods. Sad.

I heard that ! I’ve been trying to read reviews and ask the seller questions before ordering.

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I’m trying to give more homemade gifts this year, but failing! I have nearly finished a couple of necklaces and that might have to be it for the DIY stuff. I’m giving my brother a book about car design and mini Top Trumps. I’m also giving him and his wife rescue animal adoptions through a local animal shelter (theirs will be alpacas and a chicken lol). Mum will be getting sweets, chocolate and a plant; there’s a few bits and pieces for other people too.

Oh that’s cool about the rescue adoptions. How does that work?

I think I'm getting a switch OLED for xmas, they'll probably get a game with it but my sibling doesn't really play video games so I don't know what game they will choose (probably whatever is on offer..lol!)

I usually always get a bottle of my favourite brandy and then some other stocking filler gifts.


There's 3 of them (their partner and her daughter too) for me to buy for and I do the same for them a 'main present' something they want or need and some stocking filler gifts.


Not as many as I used to have buy for.!..we used to have a big family of in-laws so there be 10-12 of us xmas day and then there was a friend who had a family of 5 but lost contact with them over the pandemic ..I never got thanked by the kids or partner for their cards or presents anyway! ..so there's no way I'm gonna get into the habit of buying for the kids partners and their kids too!!

I'm giving my mom $200 this year - she said either a gift certificate or a check. I'm leaning more toward a check inside a fancy card so that she can buy what she wants.

If money permits, I plan on getting my T something nice for anywhere between $25 and $50 (my T tries to set limit on gift amounts, though I would probably get her something for like $100 if I could get away with it). I have no idea what to get my T.

I have two more T's that I want to get something for, besides a fancy card for all of them. So, apart from my psychotherapist, I have a case manager from the Vet Center as well as a Recreational Rehabilitation Therapist at the VA. I want to get them something, and I want to get enough cards to give to the people I know who have helped me throughout this pandemic.

I haven't given any gifts to the landlord or the maintenance men, but I really should now that they are more stable. It's just that we've been through 5 landlords in 2 years, so I never know if one of them will stay for very long. The gifts will probably be small.

I'm giving away my wine sample (I paid over $100, but have had no one to share them with for picnics outside, etc., so I will give them away). They're not really gifts because I purchased them for myself initially.

I suck at gift-giving. LOL

A lot of animal rescue charities will ask for donations to ‘sponsor’ the care of a particular animal for, say, a year or so, and in return they’ll send out periodic updates on the animal you choose to ‘adopt’. Often you can also buy gifts that have a picture of the animal on

I sponsor a kennel in my last dog's name and my monthly donation pays for the care of whichever dog is placed in that kennel while waiting for a new home.


I can't take in another one right now...only just managing to meet current dogs needs some days but thankfully as he's getting older too and getting more stiffness he's not needing as much intense exercise as he used to and is more happy these days doing his doggy puzzles and playing in the garden.

p.s he gets his own personalised sack of pressies from 'Santa Paws'!!

I asked for movies, a hammock, and headphones.

This year I tried something new--shopping on Amazon. I normally go hunting throughout the whole year to grab some unique things, but this year I had some major roadblocks so that didn't happen. And I accidentally signed up for a free trial of Prime.

I thought Amazon shopping would be more difficult or less personal than it actually was--I found a lot of heartfelt gifts while sitting on my butt!

I'll share a couple things...so for my mom...I work at a pet store and they had slipper socks with border collies on it and a border collie coffee mug, then I went on Amazon and bought a border collie shirt and pj bottoms and a makeup bag with border collies on it...all that will go in one bag.

I did go out to Hot Topic and bought lots of shirts for my mom with my Hot Cash and then a couple weeks later I got two freebie Hot Cash cards so I bought shirts for my dad...this year I got them lots of shirts.

And this year my brother and his wife are in Japan, so I had to be very careful what I sent cost wise...but my brother said don't buy him anything, get everything for his dog...so at the pet store I bought a ton of toys for his little dog...my brother was so happy, he sent me a video of his dog all proud of his new toy...he said he's saving the rest of the toys for Christmas.

This Christmas is a little different from the past few years. I have a friend living temporarily with me right now, and we have been out shopping for MY family lately. He isn't going to buy for his family....just give gift cards to a high class store. He wants to spend Christmas Eve and Christmas Day with me, and that's so sweet.

I bought a lovely book for my mum about peoples of the world, plus we bought an original oil painting.

I bought my sister a funny sea-glass designed framed picture which said, "I smile because you are my sister. I laugh because there is nothing you can do about it." Hee hee. We also bought her an original oil painting as well.

I bought my daughter and her husband a LARGE gift basket full of an assortment of foods. Plus I bought a lovely wooden three-dimensional plaque that said something along the lines of, "I just dusted last week. It's back. I'm not falling for that again." Hee hee.

I had to be very careful with my son and his girlfriend. They are into drugs, so I didn't want to buy something that would be traded for drugs. No gift cards, gift baskets, or GOOD presents. So I went to a store called The Funky Lunchbox. It's a candy store. I bought them each a wrapped gift box of an assortment of candies. My son's is full of all sorts of sour candies (yuke, but that's what he likes), and his girlfriend's is just a holiday assortment. I can't believe I spent over $50 on CANDY for two people in their 30's!!! Lol. But I don't think the gifts will end up in the hands of a drug dealer. At least I hope not. I figure that they will munch on their candies while they are high....which is all of the time.

I bought my friend four items that he picked out, but he has to show me more things!! He doesn't really need anything, though. I bought him a chickadee painting, 2 different essential oil mixtures for his diffuser, and a couple of "brushes" for when he shaves. Not exactly exciting. And he already knows about them.

I have no idea what I want. I don't go out much (just to the grocery store and such), so clothes aren't a great priority. My mum is getting me, among other things, a MasterCard gift card so that I can shop anywhere. Maybe I'll buy an assortment of K-Cups for the coffee maker.

Okay, I talked enough about ME. Lol. Next in line, come on up!

Do you know what is better than a cheque or cash? Apart from a lot of stores don't like to take cash anymore, the best "money" gift would be a MasterCard gift card. Then they can buy from ANYWHERE, and cash doesn't have to pass hands. Just a thought.