I hate buying birthday and christmas gifts, and I don't expect to receive them either. I don't have space in my small flat for stuff that doesn't earn the space it occupies, and I assume my relatives don't either.
My policy is to buy presents for people when I find something that I think they'd want. I usually check with them first, so that I'm getting the correct style or model. This process isn't synchronised with any anniversaries, except that if it's near an anniversary, a date-adjustment might occur. For an occasion for which some kind of gift would be expected (e.g. 21st, birth, retirement), if I don't find the right thing, they get cash.
I prefer not to give cash ("it's the thought that counts", and giving cash doesn't involve a lot of thought), and in practice I only give cash to my grown-up kids, who understand how I operate. The hardest target is small kids, who enjoy unwrapping things and enjoying them immediately. I've given cash to my toddler granddaughters too, though (via the investment fund their parents operate); but not on their birthdays.
My late father didn't want people to give him "hard" gifts - stuff that he had to keep somewhere, or worse: put on display to prove he appreciated it. He preferred gifts of food, or other stuff that could be consumed fairly quickly. I'm the same, and I treat others as I would like to be treated myself. I have enough stuff (but I'm running low on caviar).
I think a random, well-targeted, gift on a non-anniversary, coming out of blue sky, is much more exciting than yet another plastic birthday present, arriving on the same day as all the other anniversary presents, that will last a couple of weeks before going to landfill.
I often forget my own birthday. I'm fine with a Happy Birthday phone-call - or none. If someone needs an anniversary gift, for whatever reason, I visit a few card shops, and choose a really snazzy, expensive one. Some of my rels are still displaying fancy commercial cards I sent them ten years ago; I'm still displaying a hand-made card drawn by my 2-year-old granddaughter.
I hate buying birthday and christmas gifts, and I don't expect to receive them either. I don't have space in my small flat for stuff that doesn't earn the space it occupies, and I assume my relatives don't either.
My policy is to buy presents for people when I find something that I think they'd want. I usually check with them first, so that I'm getting the correct style or model. This process isn't synchronised with any anniversaries, except that if it's near an anniversary, a date-adjustment might occur. For an occasion for which some kind of gift would be expected (e.g. 21st, birth, retirement), if I don't find the right thing, they get cash.
I prefer not to give cash ("it's the thought that counts", and giving cash doesn't involve a lot of thought), and in practice I only give cash to my grown-up kids, who understand how I operate. The hardest target is small kids, who enjoy unwrapping things and enjoying them immediately. I've given cash to my toddler granddaughters too, though (via the investment fund their parents operate); but not on their birthdays.
My late father didn't want people to give him "hard" gifts - stuff that he had to keep somewhere, or worse: put on display to prove he appreciated it. He preferred gifts of food, or other stuff that could be consumed fairly quickly. I'm the same, and I treat others as I would like to be treated myself. I have enough stuff (but I'm running low on caviar).
I think a random, well-targeted, gift on a non-anniversary, coming out of blue sky, is much more exciting than yet another plastic birthday present, arriving on the same day as all the other anniversary presents, that will last a couple of weeks before going to landfill.
I often forget my own birthday. I'm fine with a Happy Birthday phone-call - or none. If someone needs an anniversary gift, for whatever reason, I visit a few card shops, and choose a really snazzy, expensive one. Some of my rels are still displaying fancy commercial cards I sent them ten years ago; I'm still displaying a hand-made card drawn by my 2-year-old granddaughter.
My christmas-card list is zero lines long.