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The way my family solved the issue GD mentions is that we just went to a lottery for everybody at that party. At the end of the day on Christmas all names would go into a bowl for the next year and eveybody would draw one.
That is who you had the next year. The rules were you could do whatever you wanted for that one gift but you didn't buy any gifts for anybody else in that bowl (at least not for that gathering, if you were married to someone or had other gatherings they were at you could do whatever you wanted). No spending maximums or minimums. But they were serious gifts and hopefully thought out.
So the result of this part of the family is that everybody had to buy one gift for other adults in the family. Children were not put in the bowl and it was expected that most people would buy gifts for most kids (and per present spending wouldn't be that high).
Behind the scenes it was made sure that come the next Christmas there'd be no gaps due to divorces, marriages, new SOs, etc.
Worked pretty well for our family, I don't remember a lot of drama. But I was only participating at an adult for a few years before my dad died and my grandparents moved to Arizona and the center failed and that particular gathering disappeared.
Personally, I hate gift giving turned into a party game with the stealing and the hurt feelings that always seem to happen and the past game reshuffling, especially the White Elephant kind. So I just stick to my guns most of the time and refuse to participant and get to be the stick in the corner. Fortunately it has been many years since any group I was part of tried to do one.
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