Do your parents still buy you Christmas gifts?

I want my mom to stop. I don't want more stuff. Don't need more stuff. She's afraid people will be "mad" at her for not giving. (She still apologizes if my brother or I get a different number of boxes than the other.)

I love my mother. But how do I have "the talk" with her? Or do I, if this makes her happy?

 

Just let it go. If it makes her happy let her do it.

 

Moddy, if it simply made her happy, I'd forever hold my peace. My concern is that she does it out of raging insecurity.

 

Dick, you just need to drink more during the holidays. Everything will be OK.

Think of the hurt she will feel if you say "I don't like what you give me and I haven't for years."

 

How insecure would she feel if she didn't get you anything? Sometimes it's hard to admit when your parents become "old people" but it's usually a good idea to just humor them as long as they're not hurting anyone.

 

Deep thoughts.

 

Here's the thing, and it's almost comical. She can't get me anything I don't like - because she demands a detailed Christmas List.

This is, I recognize, the consummate first-world problem. Just curious if others shared it.

 

I don't talk to my real father. He's a dick who treats everyone like shit. My sister humors him. I stopped humoring him five years ago when I threw him out of my house for being an asshole to my wife. We've spoken a couple times since, but I haven't seen him since. It's no great loss.

But it does remind me that while my mom does things that sometimes annoy me, I just humor her, because I know she does what she does out of love.

 

My mom is amazing and no matter how many times I tell her that just being with her is enough of a gift she keeps bringing it year after year( my dad died 22 years ago and some how my mom gutted it out, amazing woman). More than a few years ago she started getting my brother and me gift cards to a great hotel in a different city each year. My wife and I and my brother and his wife now "have to" go and have a great weekend each year. The hotels are always close enough to drive to and I must say I would be disappointed if mom stopped getting us her gift. But just being with my mom is still the best gift I receive on any Christmas.

 

That's a pretty cool gift idea.

 

My parents still buy me gifts and have tendencies to go way overboard at that. I don't need anything and don't really ask for anything. But I don't care one way or the other, either. Like others have said, it makes them happy.