[Ghoulish Delight]

Ahem, seeing as it's my family, might I chime in.

This party has been held in the same home for 40+ years. We will not be hosting it, nor making anything more than suggestions.

There's a lot of history that got things to where they are. Part of the problem is that there is a large group of us that grew up as children attending this party and us getting gifts was a large part of the party tradition. Then we all grew up into young adults and there were no children anymore. Some of the older adult generation were still feeling "obligated" to give gifts to us "children", to a fault, even whey they probably didn't have an income that made it make sense. And it was causing stupid drama in the form of guilt among those who decided not to gift, or hostility among those who vehemently wanted the gifting to stop.

So the gift exchange came about as a way to break that habit while maintaining the gift-giving atmosphere that previously defined the tradition. The side of the family most closely related to the hosting-home is a large contingent and are the ones who enjoy the "kitschy/jokey" side of it the most. So that's the way it's gone. Like I said, we can try to suggest otherwise, but it's not our call. As a matter of fact, this year the "rules" of the exchange even said, "Gift cards preferred" so someone was trying to reign it in...to no avail.

Of course, now there's a new generation of kids. Plenty of gift giving opportunity and we really should just drop the whole exchange. But if we do that, there's the danger of certain people reverting to the drama of old. No fun either. Complicating things is that the holidays is only part of the point of the party. It actually began long ago as a birthday party for my grandmother, and over the years the family has managed to amass a disproportionate amount of December birthdays. So it's largely a birthday party, with a lot of birthday gifting happening. So that's another reason the exchange has stuck around, people get concerned that people will feel left out if a bunch of people are getting birthday gifts and others aren't. Of course, those are largely the people who can't quite understand that we're not children anymore. AND no one seems to pay attention when I point out that, over all the years, I was consistently the one that received the fewest gifts and yet I really couldn't care less about who is and isn't getting gifts. But logic has little to do with it.

I have no need to get a gift - good, bad, or otherwise. But I don't want to be the sourpuss in the corner not participating. So I bring a gift, I make it something nice, and I participate. If I get something stupid, I donate it. Beyond that, it's not my call and I'm not interested in turning it into a confrontation.