Do you buy for relatives you never see?
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| Fri, 11-18-2005 - 1:55pm |
I'm stressing big time over xmas already. We are on a very tight budget this year and really want to just focus on our kids. We have a $100 budget for each other and we are really trying to keep family gifts at $20 or less a piece. I have a very large family but don't even see most of these people. They don't buy us gifts but yet my parents expect us to get them gifts because they aren't as financially secure as we are. It's so frustrating. We have to spend our hard earned money on people that have never even said thanks. We don't even see them open the gifts, don't know if they liked it, and don't even see these family members more than once a year.
I have two brothers who have never given me a gift or my kids and my kids are 10 and 8. I have a niece who I've seen maybe 5 times and she's 6 years old. I have three sisters, two of which have kids. I've seen one of the kids once...when she was first born. She's also having her first b-day right at xmas...dec 27th. My youngest son also has a b-day on Jan 2. I'd rather use our money for his occasion. I know that sounds selfish. I'm just stressed with money and don't know how to buy stuff for all these people. Even if I only spend $25 on each person, I'm looking at $275....that's more than I'm spending on my husband...who I see daily...who will really appreciate the gifts...who could really use some new things...ugh. Any advice?

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Same thing happened to me a few years back. I'm just generally not a fancy person, and I had never, in my life, had a fancy cake cutting set. Never. Not even my own Mother had a fancy cake cutting/serving set. We just used a normal kitchen knife to cut a cake and serve slices. Nothing to it. Our wedding was a simple one, and even then we didn't use a fancy cake serving set. So I was sitting at my inlaws a few years back, and I opened a gift from my sister-in-law. It was a long burgandy velvet box, and when I opened it, there were these two silver huge things in there, and I know it sounds silly, but I truly did not know what these huge things were for....a huge knife and a triangular looking spatula?? LOL! I thanked her for the gift, but her son was sitting next to me, and I think he sensed my confusion and he blurted out, "It's for serving Cake!!" LOL!!!!!
Pat :-D
I see a few issues here, LOL.
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