I have been pondering this for a few years now especially in my extended family. Twice a year we have 'mandatory' family gatherings. One is an entire weekend in the summer where we literally stuff 50 people into a 10 bedroom farmhouse, get no sleep, try to get along with siblings you never got along with when you were young, then add in allergies from being around hay barns and in the country so you are sick for weeks after. The other is Christmas.
There are also 2 gift exchanges per year. One for birthdays (names of those participating go into a hat and then given a name to buy for - gift exchange is $100.00). The other was the Christmas exchange whose price was set at $100.00 years ago then lowered to $50.00 then lowered last year to $25.00).
My husband, son, and I chose not to be a part of the birthday drawing. We just can't afford that. We agreed to stay in the Christmas exchange if it was reduced to $25.00 which it was. Did my family honor this? No. So here I was giving presents $25.00 while others were spending up to $100.00 on their name.
Now I attended Christmas yesterday. At no time was there ever a meeting or a vote. But somehow the monetary value of the Christmas gift was increased to $50.00 to $100.00 again. My husband's name, my son's name, and my name was eliminated from the 2015 Christmas list.
Guess we were eliminated because we stuck to the $25.00 gift limit.
Family.
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