How many people / presents do you buy for each Christmas?

I buy for my 2 siblings plus other halves, H's siblings plus other halves, step-daughter, grandparents. Only buy for other people if we're seeing them on christmas day. I don't buy for friends and no close friends have babies so that's not an issue. I'm a teacher so do get a lot of gifts from students and would probably buy for the teachers of any children I might have in the future.

But neither of our families spend a lot on presents - it's usually around 10 to 20 quid on each person/couple and then between 60 - 100 on step-daughter.

I have just wrote everybody who we buy for and its 37. This is 2 less than last year as we don't buy for H's nephew as he is 22 now (although his girlfriend is having a baby who we will have to buy for next year) and my 18 year old cousin as she has gone into the family secret santa draw. Thats a lot of people to buy for. I haven't included myself and H either. Thats why I start my christmas shopping in September.

I thought that when reading the other thread! I buy for hardly anyone ?

Mum, Step Dad, Dad, Step Mum, 2 brothers, Nan, MIL, FIL, SIL, BIL, H's Na, niece & nephew.

I don't buy for friends, aunts/uncles or cousins.

It's cost me £800 as it is, I couldn't afford any more!

H and I don't buy for each other. Well perhaps a token present like a diary or DVD etc.

The only adult we buy a Cristmas present for is my younger sister. Apart from her and my 2 girls, there are 9 neices/nephews.

That's it.

ETA: We buy for each other too, and H buys a bottle of booze for each of his employees and other work people.

Depends.

I always buy for my husband, my parents, my sister and her boyfriend and my best mate - oh and I tip the staff in my apartment buliding. All other friends have agreed not to do gifts and go out or something instead.

H's family is harder, we tend to buy for his parents and 3 sisters but as they got and moved in with boyfriends we've included them and in years when we've been at his parent's house we've bought everyone who will be there a gift. This year is easy, they are all coming here so we are doing secret Santa and I have just one gift to buy.

We buy for all OHs family. 2 sisters (one with partner and stepson), mum, dad, 2 gran, aunt (the only one on his mums side) and her partner.

My side we buy for my -

4 nephews, one who is 18 and I'm still deciding whether that should as of next year.
One neice.
And my half brother (who is 20 and also deciding to stop this next year).
In agreement with my mum and stepdad that we won't get each other anything and just go out for a meal when they are here for christmas.
My dad and stepmum, I don't bother with presents and haven't for a couple of years.

I found a list of presents that I made for 2004 and I bought for all the above plus my other brothers (2 full, 2 step) and their partners. So have slowly getting the list down.

Not including presents exchanged between H and I, we normally buy for:

Mum; MIL; FIL; brother & wife; nephews (aged 3 and 1); sister; niece (aged 20); BIL; BIL's girlfriend; paternal aunts (2) and 1 spouse; maternal uncle and wife; cousins (2); Secret Santa at work (one each).

Some of the couples get one present, so 18 in total. However, this year we've agreed not to buy for my brother & his wife, my sister, BIL and his girlfriend, one of my paternal aunts and her husband and one of the two cousins. Money's just too tight for us this year after the wedding, so we approached the ones we thought would also be finding things financially tough and made agreements. So this year it's 11.

Mum, Dad, Sis, BIL, nephewsx4, SIL, BIL, MIL, FIL, work colleagues x 2

That makes 14 not including H and MissSun. I culled a lot of cousins last year, they were getting too old really so I just stopped buying. It's a lot easier now.

I buy for:

H
Mum
MiL
FiL
BiL
SiL
Cousin
H's auntie
H's best friend
3 RL friends
Godchildren x 3 (aged 4,6 & 8)
3 Hitched friends (who are really RL friends tbh)
2 Hitched children (aged 1 and 3)
Friend's son (aged 4)

So 21 people, I was trying to do it all for £250 (not including H) but I'm going to go over so it'll be more like £300. I used to get a lot on 3 for 2 stuff which kept the cost down and was always within £250 budget but I am trying to avoid places like Boots this year. I'm also struggling to think of things (I think it's my meds) so when I see something I like, I'm just taking it. I have managed bargains though and so far I have £491.73 worth of stuff for £247.91. ?

Edited as I'm a numpty and got the figures the wrong way round!

1. Husband
2. son
3. son
4. new baby
5. mum
6. dad
7. FIL
8. SIL
9. BIL
10. niece
11. niece
12. niece
13. niece

We (by agreement) no longer buy for my brother and his wife, nor they for us.

blimey, you must be extremely generous, my presents cost me £500 max and that includes MissSun and my H

Thats what I thought! On my side we buy for my parents, brother, SIL, two nephews, aunt and uncle, grandparents. On H's side, sister, BIL, three nephews/niece and his mum. So 16 in total. Then a couple of friends. We buy other friends birthday presents we stopped buying Christmas presents by arrangement. We spend around £300/£350 excluding each other (and thats limited to £50)

Usually ...

fil

dad

mum

stepmum

brothersx3

silx2

stepdad

brother in law

h

kids

This year

h

kids

nephew

niece

Thats it!! We have all agreed to this so its not me being a bah humbug...

I buy for

sister

brother

mum and dad jointly usually

nana

sil & bil

Niece (10)

Nephew (13)

Nephew (5)

PiL

Grandad

and my two children.

We decided that this year we would only buy for the children, so 2 nieces and one nephew. Thats on top of my two.

So no presents for siblings, in-laws, parents, pil, friends, colleagues etc... its brilliant. We have donated an amount each to charity which we give to mum so she can buy a cow or something...

It seems to me that buying presents for adults just because its Christmas is obscene. For children its somehow fine, but for adults who frankly dont need anything it is both a waste of time and money. <sorry>

I may sounds curmudgeonly, but I'm not really. I decided about three years ago that I wouldn''t go into debt for Christmas and I've been surprised how easy Christmas can be.

I actually prefer a personal gift - a handwritten card, or some home-made cake or chocs - I'd rather that than a shop-bought gift with a receipt attached.

Well it's funny you should say that as when I was reading the other thread I was thinking 'Christ, everyone seems to buy a lot or each person, maybe I'm a bit of a tight wad!' If I average the presents out I spend £50pp.

Christmas always gets way out of hand for us. Each year we say it will be different, but it never is! Not including us, we buy for 23 main people (siblings, their spouses, nieces, nephews and two very close friends). We usually average about £20-25 per person although I tend to buy one main gift and then top it up with little bits and pieces (especially for my mum and sister) so the budget usually gets a bit stretched. We also buy for another 6 people but these are smaller token gifts (sometimes vouchers) of around £10 each.

So I am another or spends around £500 on gifts for others (without including us and we usually go way OTT on that too) and I do think it is crazy! I need to suggest a secret Santa, even if it is just for H's family ?

Well there are 5 of us but apart from that its:

Mum, dad, brother, nan, nephew, niece, MIL, uncle-in-law and 2 close family friends. Then if I remember we send something also to FIL and step MIL and an aunty-in-law.

So not that many but enough! I think I'd get too stressed if I had to think about more ?

We just buy for imediate family so just mum, dad, brother, mil, mil's partner, bil, sil, 2 nephews and 2 grandparents-in-law. I also buy for a couple of close friends. We'll probably spend £150 - £200 and thats overestimating. I've brought most of my gifts in sales online (and woolworths) and the gifts for the inlaws will be bought in the sales after chirstmas (not seeing them till end of Jan).

I buy for 43 people. Its crazy. I've tried to cut it down but my family is so big and they all have lots of children.

Most of the adults just get a small gift (about a fiver or so) but I've also had to cut down how much I spend per child as each year there is another two or more to buy for. Now that my brothers and sisters have just about finished their families, my friends are starting to plan children so that number is just going to keep increasing.

A few years ago I was totally skint and told all the family I wasn't buying gifts for any of the adults that year and the kids were all just getting something small (DVD per family, that type of thing) and all hell was let loose. You'd swear I'd disowned my family.

Mum, Dad, H, son & daughter, brother, SIL, BIL, MIL, FIL, Granny, nursery staff, teacher and 3 friend's children (the rest of us have an agreement not to get xmas presents for each other!).

We are skint this year so except for H & the kids, my budget is about £15-20 per person - still adds up though! Budget for teacher is about £5, and nursery staff will probably just get chocolates or something.

We buy for 26 people.

I buy for 30 people and have spent £450 this year on Christmas presents.

That's only buying for close family and very good friends.

I've cut it down this year too, last year we bought 8 extra people that we've had to cut back on this year.

I spend £30 max per person, £10 max for work colleagues and I don't want to think how much i've spent on MissSun. MrSun's came to about £60.

This year we're buying for 7 people. 4 kids, my husband (and him for me) and a secret santa each for the adults in our family.

We've spent about £300 in total.

It's all relative though, innit? What's a lot for one person is seen like buttons to others. Even people on similar incomes can spend vastly different amounts of money, different people have different ideas of how much they should spend at Christmas and how it should be spent.

Me for example, I know my £350-400 budget for 21 people (including H) is quite generous but still don't have the confidence to just buy one gift for each person. I was brought up on lots of smaller presents and I just can't do it any other way. I bargain hunt to make the money go further. I spend £65 on my mum for example and this year have bought her a Kathy Reich's box set for £9.99 (rrp £60) from The Book People (I always buy her a box set of books), a glass bowl from Debenhams for £16 (rrp £30), a rucksack from Mountain Warehouse outlet for £12.99 (rrp £29.99), a Willow Tree Angel for £8.25 (rrp £11.50), The Priests CD for £8.93 (rrp £16.99) and will also buy her turkish delight, shampoo, soap and chocolate. So far I have £144.87 worth of stuff for £56.16 and it's all on things I know she needs/really wants. Other people would have the confidence to buy a nice single present for £65.

I knew we were getting off lightly - kids is increasing things but I'm still doing really well I think!

Husband, Mum, Dad, Grandma, Grandad, Nieces x 2, one set of married friends plus their two kids (one of which is H's godson), one other long standing friend plus his fiance (but don't really know her that well so just a token gift there. So that's 12 in all, we don't buy for my bro and his wife, they said just to get for the kids and they also live abroad so it's a bit harder to get stuff to send over.

I've spent £315 so far but not bought anything for my grandad yet so that'll add on a little bit more, as will the postage for sending my nieces away.

28 family presents

Secret santa for work £10

presents for H

H, Me?, our son, our dog, mum, dad, 2 nans, MIL, FIL, 2 nephews, neices, bestmates 2 children, my H's colleagues 2 children and then obviously present from dog to son and son to dog and then son to H etc etc.

We usually get a family gift (Which is a PS3 this year) and then aim to spend 30.00 on parents and each other, 150.00 on son but this year I have overspent on my H, as he has no suprises as he got his coat early. So I have just bought him a game for him to open. Around 10-15 pounds on the other children.

All in all, around 800.00 I reckon this year.

Umm, h, me, sister, dad, SIL, ILS, nan, grandad, aunt, uncle, friends little ones , cats x 3, and 2 friends, so thats about 22. I think I have speant about £250 this year not including H's presies whihc we had a limit of 100.

We buy for:

Each other (£100 - £150)

My mum (£30)

MIL (£30)

My mum's boyfriend (£5)

FIL (£30)

BIL (£10)

My brother (£10)

My grandparents (£30)

His grandparents (£30)

Friend 1: £12.00

Friend 2: £12.00

Friend 3: £12.00

Friend 4: £12.00

So in total that's about £533 (I think I added it up right, but am on pain meds, so excuse if not)

We decided a long time ago that since our families are both pretty large that we would only buy for immediate family. We don't buy for cousins or their children and everyone has been happy with this as they didn't want to start a tradition of buying for each other.

We have also cut back a lot this year, on my mum and brother's side, because they asked us to. We have cut back MIL and FIL and BIL because they always seem so ungrateful with anything we buy them and we are sick of spending so much and feeling as though we might as well throw them in the bin. I spend a lot on my grandparents as I am especially close to them and H matches that with his for fairness sake. Some of our friends buy for each other and some don't, so we have wound up with four to buy for this year.

When we have kids this will all change of course, the biggest one being what we spend on each other. What we spend on Christmas is relative to our income though and although we do buy everything on credit cards for the protection this provides (still not sure if debit cards provide same level of protection), we pay them back immediately, so don't go into debt for any of this.

I buy for 9 people: my H, Mum, sister, BIL, SIL & her partner, MIL, Grandad, work secret santa and I this year I spent £800 (£500 on my H, £100 each Mum & sister, £20 per other person, £5 ss)

Because we know we don't want kids we haven't entered into the round of buying for all our friends' kids and we even stopped secret santa with the adults last year. But we do always get them a lovely outfit on their births (justifying to me not you!)