For those that can’t stand this time of the year, my misery seeks company. What does it for you?
For me: aside from the usual family stuff:
I worked front-end in a post office back when that meant a line-up before I opened the doors to the end of the day when I had to inform the line-up that was still out the door that, yes, I was going to close on time. (Some didn’t take that well. For me it was just another Tuesday…)
It meant a lot of work with little thanks and I had to listen to the same shitty Xmas playlist over and over all day.
Edit/PS: The quick downvote sells it. Perfection. chefs kiss
I want to chime in on 2., because I have a similar problem and there’s some ways I’ve found to work around that. Maybe there’s something you might like out of that. Because for God’s sake, I don’t need another scarf that I am not going to wear, my daughter doesn’t need another plastic toy, and we really don’t buy stuff at zalando and my family keeps gifting this to my spouse who owns like 3 t shirts and a sweater and likes it that way.
My favorite: Ask for donations in your name. Find a charity you can really get behind. My husband likes a buddhist foundation of a demised teacher, I like OVD Info. If the person who is gifting doesn’t like the idea, maybe point out that it is tax deductible.
Ask for specific vouchers. If your folks are running out of ideas and are about to gift you an amazon voucher, try to think of something that you might use in your everyday life. Maybe it even is amazon; then set the same amount of money aside to get you something you really want or need and spend that money on everyday stuff. At least in Germany, there are services like Task Rabbit, where you can book a handyman to fix your window, install your heater, etc. This might be worth a voucher.
Ask for a voucher of time together. That’s usually a stupid one (especially when you’re autistic) because usually you can just spend time with people you like without a voucher. But sometimes it keeps them from getting you more junk.
Even worse for autistic people, but also worth a try - as kids we were encouraged (at school) to make voucher books for our parents with things like “1x taking out the trash”, “1x vacuum cleaning” etc. I personally don’t think these things should need a voucher, but maybe you can think of your own version. (Like, I shouldn’t need a voucher to get one hour of gaming or for my spouse to compromise on what’s for dinner, but maybe you’re in a stressful home and this works for you.)
Obviously, self made presents or hand me downs. “Do you have something in your home that isn’t of any use to you but you feel like I could still like it? I would love to have something that used to be yours and makes me think of you, while I also can give it a new, beloved home!” And everyone can glue a card sized collage.
Ask for things that you will consume. Cookies, good bread, pens, soap, whatever. So it doesn’t accumulate.
Not trying to be contrary, but I’ve gone down this rabbit hole a lot over the years
As far as the donation goes, the argument I keep running up against is usually that they want me to “have something to unwrap” that isn’t just cash or a gift card (no matter how many times I tell them that I don’t care about that) I feel like a little “a donation has been made in your name” note would probably feel like even less of a present to them
Unfortunately I don’t think any of my family are itemizing their deductions.
And as far as vouchers and gift cards go, I hate those things enough that in retrospect they probably should have been point 10. I never remember to use them, I have probably over $200 in various gift cards sitting around in my house right now that I’ll probably never think to grab when I’m running out to the store or making an order online. And I hate being forced to shop at specific places. And of course the amount always ends up not being exactly what I need, so either I’m left with like $2.37 left on a card that I’m really never going to bother using, or I still have to pay something out of pocket in which case I’d really rather I be able to shop around to get the best deal possible but can’t if I want to use the gift card.
Cash would be great, but again they want to give me something besides cash or a gift card.
And as far as personal vouchers go, my home/family life is mercifully pretty harmonious. Except for Christmas I don’t have many complaints, I see everyone pretty much exactly as much as I want to, get to do the things I enjoy doing, etc… About the only thing I would want there is a “get out of Christmas free card” which feels like a weird Christmas present.
And we’re sort of the cooks in the family, so I am the source of good bread and cookies and such, and I don’t really go through a lot of snack foods. I just recently threw out a bunch of candies and such from last Christmas to make room for what I surely have incoming this year, and my soap and such needs are pretty minimal, my preferred brand comes in gallon jugs that lasts me a good long time, and other consumables tend to last me a long time and I never seem to run low around the holidays, nor do I have the storage space to really stockpile a bunch of extras.
And my family is already really good at moving around stuff we’re not using, my brother in law (sisters husband) was kind of astonished at how often we end up moving furniture from one relatives house to another and handing off random things to people who can use them. We could maybe save some of that for Christmas, but then it becomes a problem of “where do we store this second couch we bought in August until we can give the old one away in December”
And handmade stuff I don’t need is still stuff I don’t need.