Buying for 10 aunts and uncles, 30 cousins, 15 different friends, etc can put a huge dent in your Christmas budget. This year, set up a gift exchange. Have each person draw a name out of the hat and set the budget at something reasonable. By buying for 1 person instead of 20 people, you will all save money.
Gift exchanges do not have to be ‘boring’. Here’s some tips on how to make it more fun:
- Have each person guess who bought them the item. If they guess it right, they win something (maybe some homemade candies that one person bakes).
- Don’t assign names. Instead have everyone bring their wrapped gift and pass them around in a circle like hot potato. The person who has the gift when the music ends, gets to keep it. And then you start all over again with another gift (eliminating that person).
- Play white elephant.
Do you have any more ideas on how to make a gift exchange fun?
Be sure to check out the Couponing to Christmas category for all the hottest coupons and deals for this Holiday season. You can also read through my planning articles here.
We do a bizarre version of dirty Santa with the adults. Everyone who wants to participate purchases a unique 1.00 gift, Attached to the gift is a 10.00 gift card. The gift card is hidden so no one knows where the gift card is from. Last year everyone fought over a rooster glasses holder. Very hideous but for some reason everyone wanted it. In years past things like a light up grill were heavily sought after. The fun part is fighting over the 1.00 gift. Once everyone has had two turns they receive the gift card attached to their gift. The highly sought after rooster contained a chick filet card. Fun little thing to do that has become my favorite Christmas activity. If you don’t like the gift card you can swap. Everyone enjoys.
We have a huge family. Every year on Thanksgiving we put all the adults names into a cup/bowl/whatever is handy to grab. We then have someone walk the container around(normally myself) and each person will grab a different name out. If you draw your spouse or your parents or child you cant buy for them, since you get gifts from/for them anyways. So you normally draw and aunt, niece, nephew, uncle, cousin, grandparent etc. All the children will get gifts from all the adults. For the person you draw we all agree on a price limit. It is different every year. Normally it is around $30 though. Sometimes couples like to go in together as well. On Christmas eve we all get together and exchange the gifts! Its a lot of fun and it has worked so well over the years for our family!
Heather, you should try doing your exchange through elfster.com. You enter everyone’s names then you can mark who cannot “draw” who and the computer does the exchange for you. You can put a wishlist in there and everything. Our family has been using it for years and we love it!
My family did a gift exchange with a $10 limit – the most coveted was the book of stamps!
I like White Elephant, but with new inexpensive things instead of junk. And by inexpensive, I mean $10 or less.
We do a big family ornament exchange right around Christmas. Everyone brings an ornament wrapped, and the first person chooses a package and opens it. The second can steal or open another ornament. Once an ornament has been stolen 3 times it’s out…it can’t be stolen anymore. When we get to the end (last year there were 39 of us!) the first person can steal and ornament or choose to keep what they have, since then never had the option to steal from the start.
We do A Deal or No Deal type thing. The kids are in charge which makes it fun! Everyone brings a $25 gift card to anywhere they want. Then the kids but them in cases and pass out numbers. The person with number 1 picks first and they chose any case. They can then keep the card or change cases but they have to keep what is in that second case. We do this so on and then the adults do one for the kids. Examples for adults have included: gas cars, grocery stores, fancy restruants.
Examples for kids include: toy stores, fast food restruants, ice cream shops.
What a great idea, Katie! I love Deal or No Deal. I wonder if I could get my husband to wear a shower cap & be Howie Mandel ;]
we did something similiar growing up….the 10 and younger kids picked their wrapped present from a huge stocking…mostly giftcards to a store like walmart… the older people would sit at huge table (my cousin owned a renovated church) we would go around the tabel first person picked a wrapped present next person then picked one and could either open it or trade with the first person if they liked their gift. then whoever got stuck with the wrapped one would open and we would go around….took forever but it was so much fun!!! then all my family would have to buy for the 200 plus ppl was a gift card per child (10$) AND a gift per adult