It’s the most wonderful time of the year—to spend all our money, that is. Sure, Christmas is jolly, but when you have a big family, you might find yourself wincing at your dwindling bank account as you buy everyone gifts. It feels to good to give, but the more people you buy for, the less money you have.
One woman, who grew up as an only child, only recently has felt the effects of gift buying. She married into a huge family; her husband has three sisters, all of who are married. On top of that, each of those couples has three children. Plus, let’s not forget about his parents and step-mom, too. That’s a LOT of people—and gifts.
“I was very surprised when we started dating and I found out we were expected to get gifts for his parents, step-parent, three sisters, three brothers-in-law, and ALL NINE KIDS,” she explained in a recent Reddit post.
She also explained some background about her husband’s family: “Before we were married, [my husband] would only buy his parents Christmas gifts. He’s the only boy and the baby of the family so no one really expected gifts from him in his early 20s,” she said.
The poster also explained that in her family, she always drew a name from a hat. “For family Christmas when I was growing up, the children (my cousins) would draw a name and the adults would draw a name for Christmas gifts so each child had another child’s name and each adult had another adult’s name,” she said. “From my understanding, this is pretty normal in families.”
She suggested this as an alternative to buying every single family member gifts, also adding that she and her husband “choose to live below [their] means so [they] can make extra monthly mortgage payments and pay off our house more quickly.”
While she clarifies at the end of the post that, no matter what, they’re going to buy the millions of gifts as to not start an argument, but needed to vent about her “level of annoyance at how ridiculous this is.”
She asked thee Reddit world if she was the jerk or not here. So what’s the verdict?
Drumroll, please…
The general consensus has confirmed that this woman is NOT the jerk.
“You can’t be expected to shell out for 25+ gifts every single Christmas, that’s insane,” someone posted. “Some friendly advice? I wouldn’t do it even this once, because then you set an expectation.”
“Buy them all gifts from the Dollar Tree, Dollar General, 99cent store, and other bargain stores so you won’t break the bank,” someone else suggested. “If they try and berate you about the gift you got them, throw the old ‘you never look a gifted horse in the mouth’ mumbo jumbo and smile and enjoy Christmas.”
What are your thoughts on this much holiday gift spending? How much do you usually spend on your extended family? Do you always buy for everyone if you have a big family, or pull names from a hat to limit the expenses?