At Thanksgiving, Discuss Changing Your Holiday Gift Giving Rules

Thanksgiving is traditionally a family day. While the family is all together at the dining room table or at a restaurant, consider bringing up the topic of creating or revising gift giving rules for the Holiday Season.  This year is an especially good one because of our ailing economy.  If you and your loved ones are stressed out with shopping, concerned about expenses, overwhelmed by your already many duties without the added tasks of the holidays, consider these gift giving options:

• Agree not to trade meaningless “stuff.”
• Agree to lower (or set) a spending limit.
• Draw names from a hat.  Each person buys for the one person whose name s/he draws. Combine this with a spending limit so everyone is treated fairly.
• Join with others on expensive gifts.
• Give one gift to the entire family. (ex: a large or unusual jigsaw puzzle, tickets to a carnival, amusement area or day at the zoo or dinner out for the family. Wrap the gift in an unusual way.  Decide that individuals will receive gifts on their birthdays, or other special days.
• Where there are small children involved, allow parents to set gift receiving limits for their children and respect those limits as a way of relationship building. The spirit of the season does not include competition for the hearts of children.
• Keep some gifts in the token category as a gesture of friendship; better yet, spend time together and agree the time spent together is your gift to each other.
• At work or in organizations, whenever someone suggests a ‘grab bag’ suggest instead the office/organization spend the money on food or other items for the needy.  Who needs more clutter?

This one step will help you celebrate, rather than dread the Christmas season this year.