My husband and I had a gift exchange with my brother, his wife, my sister and my other brother. A total of 6 people. We had settled on a $50.00 minimum...and we all drew names. We ended up finding out who are secret santa's were........and we were all ok with that. My question is..........what do you do when someone just flakes out on the gift exchange....shows up for Christmas dinner without a gift..........opens and accepts their gift....but doesn't say anything about what they were supposed to bring. My brother did that to my husband. He made a big deal about wanting a wish list....so that he could get him something he really wanted. Then showed up for dinner empty handed....he knew that's when we would be exchaning gifts....and just said nothing about it.

He has been having some financial problems lately......but he could have at least said something about it. Like, I'm sorry but I'll have to pull out of the gift exchange.....I wasn't able to buy anything. But no, he showed up and very gladly took his gift and went home.

What would you all do?? I'm upset...because my husband got the raw end of the deal.....and I spent $85.00 on my brother's gift....since I happened to be his secret santa.

Wow I would say your brother is pretty gutsy for doing such a thing, I had posted somthing similar to this in online bargins as my sister in law always gets whosever name she draws a 20.00 gas card while the rest of us spend 50-100. dollars on the gift exchange & I was looking for a cheap digital frame for her as I was her santa & she actually went a little lower than norm this year & gave 10.00 which is frustrating but I guess after reading your post atleast it's somthing. Maybe we should discuss the exchange with family members and try somthing different? I did end up spending around 60.00 for her digital frame. I know Christmas is supposed to be about giving but it just does not seem fair does it? I feel so bad for you & your husband.

Gosh, that is very gutsy of him to do! Have you talked to the rest of the family members to see if the talked to them about it?

I would definatley ask your bother about it. Who knows, maybe he ordered something and it was suppose to be shipped to your husband?

Nonetheless, it really stinks that you guys got the raw in of the deal. I think for now on, you should think about excluding him from the exchange.

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Wow i would have been ticked. Nothing like that has ever happened to us so i'm not sure what i would do.

Perhaps once i found out he didn't have a gift for your husband i would have handed his gift to your husband.
I would call him on it.

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Jodie....Wife to Andrew (1995)
Mommy to Riley (2000) and Wyatt (2003)

this is why we stopped the adult gift exchange... I was the one getting the short end while my sil's asked for th $50 gc.. They were sure to get their $ but wanted to buy me a gift, something for me... at 10-15 dollars..

Surrender, call it quits.... you will feel much better and knowing your not getting anything is better than the flustration your going through..

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Life may not be the party we hoped for, but while we are here we might as well dance!

Yikes! I can't believe someone showed up without their gift! That's never happened with our family...we're also pretty consistent with the amt we spend on each person and there hasn't been a situation where someone spends a lot less. That's really too bad. It sounds like a gift exchange might just not be the best idea. Either people aren't wanting to do it for whatever reason, can't afford it and don't want to say so etc

I am so tired of the gift exchange with Dh's family. Each year I try to figure out a way to get out of it and it never works. LOL! We do an exchange with Dh's step brother and sisters, and then another one with Dh's 'blood' siblings. I'm ready to just ditch both. I just think we all have more than we could ever need, and wish we could just focus on getting together for a nice meal and maybe get gifts for the kids and leave it at that. It's hard to get out of!

I feel your pain - I too get the short end of the gift exchange stick. I spend over $125 on my sister and brothers families but got back about $30 TOTAL in gifts(a robe and 3 5x7 pictures). I realize Christmas isn't all about presents but it just irks me when I spent so much and got back so little in return. I bought everyone their own present (8 total)but yet I got 1 present and 3 pictures back in return. Needless to say I'll be spending less next year on them(If I remember).

I'm sorry this happened to you. I don't know if I'd say something or not - that kind of thing is so hard.

Anyway, though, I've gotten burned before By family members in a different way - well not me but ds. We were supposed to exchange $25 gifts and ds - only 2 at the time got this horrible loud cheap toy from my cousin's wife. There was NO WAY it was $25!! I saw it later at Wal-mart for $9.99. I thought it was horrible - terrible - to cheap out on a child's gift like that, someone that couldn't speak for themselves. I didn't say anything, but my cousin's wife knew I was pi$$ed. She said, "I can show you the receipt" and I thought, "Yes, please do!" because she Knew I wouldn't call her on it (I didn't - I feel I'll let her stew - she knew she was in the wrong). I ended throwing away the damn thing anyway, it was so loud - ds hated it - I was afraid for his hearing it was that loud.

Again sorry that this happened to you.

Our rule is very simple: if you "forget" your gift, you
do NOT RECEIVE a gift. Period!!

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I'm going to go against the grain here and say that it is better to give than to receive. Christmas is about giving, not what you can get. If you bought him an $85 gift out of the kindness of your heart and in the spirit of giving during the Christmas season, then forget it. There are worse things in life than not getting a present. Next time donate the money in his name to a children's charity and present him with a nice card.

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There are more than 40 different types of congenital heart defects. Little is known about the cause of most of them. There is no known prevention or cure for any of them.
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