How can we do a gift exchange where adults buy gift for children when there are more children than adults?

iWantaDoOver: How can we do a gift exchange where adults buy gift for children when there are more children than adults?
Our family is getting larger and larger, with more and more children. This year we have decided not to buy gifts for adults and just exchange names for the children. The problem we have is that there are more children than adults. We are trying to think of the best way to handle a gift exchange without braking the bank for our families. We have 7 adults and 8 kids. The kids range from newborn to 10 years old. We have thought about just having someone buying one additional gift, but is this our only option?

Answers and Views:

Answer by cheermomgoteam
I’m not sure how the kids are rationed out. Do all people have kids? What we do in my family is, however many kids you have, thats how many names you pull. I have two children, so I pick two names. My sister has 3 kids, so she pulls 3 names.

The ball/laptop comment reminded me of something else. Each kid gets a 25 dollar gift. The reason we did this is because I was a poor college kid…lol…I didn’t have the money so I made the suggestion. Christmas seemed so commercialized and it seemed like thats what we were teaching the kids. “Christmas is about stressing out what to get people and wondering how you are going to make ends meet.” I thought my request would get shot down since I was the only one without money, but everyone was more than happy about it! The kids don’t feel disappointed with the change. My mom is the one who pointed that out the year before we started this. My nephew opened a present and wanted to play with it, but was told, open this one too, open this one. My mom said, “We train kids to not feel satisfied with what they have. He would be more than happy to just have that one toy, but we push more and more on them until they come to expect it.” (She didn’t say it in a mean way, more of a wow it just hit me way.) The kids are happy and then they go off and play…lol…

Answer by Panama Joe
The very littlest ones don’t know or care what Christmas is, so don’t sweat buying them gifts. We have the same thing in our family, and the gift giving has just gotten out of hand. We have exchanged letters and calls determining who will buy what for whom, but then one of the parents gets PO’d because a baby got a ball, and a college student got a mini-laptop (notebook)!

There ain’t no pleasing some people.