A big part of Christmas involves exchanging presents, but can Christmas be just as special with fewer gifts?

Do parents really need to get presents for their adult children?

In today’s story, one mom goes way overboard with the Christmas presents, and her son offers a suggestion to change things this year.

Read on to see how his mom reacts to his suggestion…

AITA for only exchanging gifts for the kids this Christmas?

Wife and I (30s) have a 1 year old baby.

We spend Thanksgiving with her family and Christmas with mine every year.

Christmas with my family is a ton of gifts every year- for my parents, brother, SIL, and their three kids (12, 16, and 22).

My mom gives a lot of gifts and while it is very sweet, it’s a lot of things to lug home every year.

We have a VERY small house and too much stuff already, and honestly the gifts aren’t always things we want or need.

They’ve sold a bunch of the mom’s gifts.

The last couple years we’ve been selling a lot of the extra stuff on marketplace (after smiling and thanking profusely of course).

We just don’t have room for all the things my mom gets us, especially since she also gets us gifts for birthdays, Mother’s Day/Father’s Day, and gets the baby multiple gifts for every holiday (literally- Halloween, Easter, Valentine’s Day, you name it).

They’ve been talking about a budget for Christmas presents.

Wife and I were talking about if our oldest nephew is too old to get a gift for (at 22, we weren’t getting gifts from aunts and uncles anymore), and it led to us to talking about how much money we’re going to spend on gifts this year, and how little room we have in our house.

Important is that we are one income as of last year as my wife is taking child rearing leave to be home with the baby.

We can swing it but it is very tight, by no means are we rich, we’re just keeping our finances tight in order to afford it.

They’ve decided they only want to do a gift exchange for the kids.

We decide now that we have our own kid too, it would be a good idea to see if we can only exchange kid gifts with my brother’s family.

I talked to my brother and he loved the idea, so we agreed to only get gifts for each others’ children.

I then messaged my mom, who had asked me earlier that day what we want for Christmas.

I told her I was thinking about it and we don’t need anything, and would like to just enjoy our time together this Christmas and don’t need gifts for us.

His mom seemed on board with gifts only for the kids at first, but changed her mind.

I know she wants to buy the baby gifts so I said feel free to get her a couple things but don’t worry about us.

She seemed perfectly fine with it, clarified not to get anything for them either, and the conversation ended.

Ten minutes later, she messages again asking why I’ve blindsided her out of left field and how can I be so inconsiderate.

(Note- my mom can be extremely emotional and dramatic, and a bit narcissistic especially ever since I got married.)

His mother is accusing him of “ruining Christmas.”

I calmly explained that this is the best decision for us because we have a small house and are on one income now, and wanted to enjoy the holiday together without worrying about the material aspect as much, while still keeping the gift magic for the kids.

(I also never said my parents and brother/SIL shouldn’t exchange gifts, that has nothing to do with us).

She replied that I was insulting her, calling her materialistic, ruining Christmas, and an AH.

I stepped back from the argument at that point because I’ve been here a million times and I know she’s not going to absorb anything I say, will make herself the victim no matter how nice I am, and no progress will be made.

AITA?

From the mom’s perspective, she probably doesn’t like seeing traditions change, but Christmas can still be fun without gift overload!

Let’s see how Reddit reacted…

This reader has a mom just like OP’s mom.

Perhaps the mom could gift them experiences.

Here’s how another reader handles a similar situation…

This is a good suggestion…

You don’t have to be a people pleaser.

I like the idea of giving experience gifts.

At least you don’t have to make room for them.

If you thought that was an interesting story, check this one out about a man who created a points system for his inheritance, and a family friend ends up getting almost all of it.