A family gift exchange can be a great way for a large family to save money on gifts over the holiday season. Not only will everyone be able to keep their gift spending down to a manageable and budget-friendly amount but it can also be a fun game for the adults in the family to participate in!
There are several types of gift exchanges that families can participate in to keep things lively around the holidays. Gift exchange games can help to cut the holiday savings on gifts, there is no doubt about that, but they can turn an otherwise boring family affair into a raucous affair that leaves everyone feeling lighthearted!
1Getting Things Started
The first step in organizing your family gift exchange is to make sure that every member of your family is in agreement about it. If you find that several members of your family are hesitant about it, just remind them that it can not only help to save money but that it can be a great and fun addition to your holiday celebration. You may find that the members of your family are much more in agreement if the gift exchanges are to be amongst the adults only so that the younger children in the family don’t feel like they are being short-changed.
Consider holding two gift exchanges: one for members of your family under the age of 16, and one for the adult members in your family.
There are several types of fun gift exchanges – find the one that most appeals to you and the members of your family and get to planning!
2Secret Santa Gift Exchanges
In a Secret Santa gift exchange, members of your family are assigned or pick out a person for whom they purchase a gift. The gift is then given to the recipient anonymously. Working out who buys for whom is pretty simple to do but try to make sure that everyone who is participating knows that it is meant to remain anonymous – at least until Christmas Day. At your family’s Thanksgiving celebrations place every person’s name into a hat and have the members of your family draw out a name of the person for whom they will be buying a gift.
Remember to remind the participants of the basic Secret Santa rules so that everything is done fairly.
- Set a dollar amount for the gift exchange; a general rule of thumb is to keep the cost of the gift under $40.
- Participants can include a small wish list of items that appeal to them to give the gift-buyer a better idea as to what to purchase.
- The participants should try to keep things anonymous and not ruin the surprise aspect of the game by making mention of it to other members in the family prior to the gift exchange.
On Christmas Day, the gift-giver might choose to make his or herself known – or opt to remain completely anonymous just for the fun of it!
3White Elephant Gift Exchange Ideas
The White Elephant gift exchange is a great alternative to the Secret Santa gift exchange. In this game, the larger the group of participants the more fun and entertaining the game can be.
The premise of the game is each person purchases one gift for a set dollar value. The gifts are then assigned a number and the numbers are put into a hat so that the participants can select a number at random. As the first person opens their gift, the other gift exchange participants will carefully observe the item and determine if it is something that they want to “steal” from the original gift-opener. As it becomes their turn they can either opt to keep the gift that they opened or they can exchange, or steal, the gift with someone else who may have something else that they want instead. To keep things fair it is a good idea to put a few rules into play. For example, each gift can only be stolen twice – after that it becomes “safe” and therefore exempt from further swapping. People who have had their gifts “stolen” from them can’t steal their gifts back but they do get another opportunity to swap out their gift for one of the other already-opened gifts already in the game!
If a large group of people are participating in the game then couples could work together to snag the items that they like the best! If the dollar value of the items is kept to a reasonably low amount, without being cheap, then the game will be able to remain fun and lighthearted. Try to encourage the members of your family to keep the gifts within the dollar value guides so that you don’t have fierce rivalry for the one iPod in the game as participants try to unload the package of tennis balls!
4Gift Wish Lists
If you find it difficult to shop for the members of your family when it comes to birthdays, and Christmas gift exchanges then you should give thought to having everyone set up online wish lists that can make it an effortless process to select gifts for everyone. The majority of online retailers, like Amazon.com, as well as brick and mortar retailers who have strong online presences, like Target and Wal-Mart, allow visitors to their website to set up wish lists that can allow gift shoppers to select something that the recipient is sure to love!
Alternatively, websites like See What I Like (www.seewhatilike.com) allows users to add items that they like from just about any website to a wish list that can be readily viewed by anyone with access to their wish lists. These are not just options to consider for gift exchanges, but can help grandparents and other family members know what gifts the children in the family would appreciate getting for birthdays and graduation celebrations!
Giving gifts to the members of your family doesn’t need to have a negative impact on your budget; by participating in a family gift exchange you will be able to ease the financial burden a little bit on everyone’s wallets while also allowing everyone to have a great time!
