I keep butting heads with my Fiance about X-mas cause I get frustrated. We’ve done an excellent job saving for our wedding and other things we desire. This month we’ve received many presents from family in the form of gift cards and I’m really appreciative but to reciprocate the gift we would need to tap into these savings. I wish we had another option but I don’t want to be “the Grinch”. What should I do? I don’t want to disappoint my family and I don’t want my Fiance to think I’m anit-christmas.
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Why don't you invite everyone to a family party, plan out a beautiful day for everyone and I'm sure your fiance would love it. Its true you'd still have to spend some money for all this to happen, but it would be cheaper than having to buy presents for everyone.
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One would think. Except, and here is part of the problem, my fiance and I and in Connectiut. Her family is in Pennsylvania (8 hours away) and my family is 3+ hours away (New York). Our extended family is even father (her sister is in Denver, CO.). The parents expect us to be present for Christmas but we can't please everyone (literally, because I don't know how to be in NY and PA simultaneously). It seems to me that they are being unfair because they aren't simpathetic to the fact that we can't visit both sets of parents and they won't come to our house (which is probably too small to host a party). Aghhh, I hate hating x-mas but how can I help it?
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I'm not really sure how to solve the issue, unless of course you would consider resending the gifts you've recieved to someone else, nothing gained, nothing lost =p
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Resend the gifts.
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That's what we are doing - sending any presents we can from one family to the other. I appreciate the help sunxfyr and kspu. As you would expect, some of the presents can't be re-gifted and we're covering those out-of-pocket. Hopefully we can re-gift, fill in gaps, make next months bills, and leave the savings alone. I just feel like, while we may have met our obligation gift-wise, we may not have really matched our presents-received with our presents-sent. I suppose we don't need to be totally equal but... I f-ing hate this material-driven consumer-istic BS. Does anyone else feel the same? Does anyone else agree the holiday gift-giving is getting out of control?
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I think the gift-giving lost it's meaning a long time ago.
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I agree. This year I made ginger bread homes from scratch...and made some middle eastern sweets and sent those to everyone. It was a lot of work, learned a lot of new recipes, cost a lot less and it was actually fun. :-)
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kspu - that is the the sort of gift I think is the best. I should just not be so worried about being "equal" and just give gifts that are appropriate - thanks all.