How to Say No to Gifts: Tips for Setting Boundaries During the Holidays

• Introduction
• Young Kid with No Money
• Teenager with an Allowance
• Undergrad Student Working Part-Time
• Graduate Student with a Scholarship 
• Wife Nearing 30 while Unemployed
• Present Day (lol)
• Conclusion

These first few months of the new year are the perfect time to reflect on and re-evaluate how we manage gifts over the holidays. 

If you are reading this post, I assume you are looking to do just that so I offer my reflections on how I went from growing up with abundant holidays to now living a minimalist lifestyle filled with receiving and giving an extremely limited amount of gifts. 

However, this post is not meant to shame anyone who enjoys gifts. 

I am merely trying to offer my perspective on what works for myself and my husband as, like so many others, we grew up with gifts going hand in hand with the holidays without much thought behind why we were doing it. 

Through boundaries we try to get ahead of receiving gifts that, while we so appreciate the thoughtfulness of the gesture, we know we won't keep. 

To get to where my husband and I are today with gift-exchanges, it wasn't a clear step-by-step process but some big successful moments do stand out in my different seasons of life (which quickly include my husband as we started dating at eighteen). 

These steps appear throughout this post within my stories, along with the clunky struggles of saying no to gifts, and are summarized in the conclusion. 

Young Kid with No Money 

What excited me about receiving and giving gifts? 

Growing up, I was privileged to have parents who went out of their way to make Christmas and other holidays abundant and magical. 

I had no way of buying the things I wanted for myself, and I felt all the holiday magic came from the gifts, so I would get painfully excited waiting for each December. 

I also had no way to buy gifts for other people, and the only people I felt expected gifts from me were my parents. 

School often included making crafts that I would happily give them. 

I was quite spoiled beyond Christmas, too, often waking up to small gifts and treats on other holidays like Valentine's Day and Easter. 

Reflecting on all those holidays now, I don't feel nostalgic for any specific gifts. 

Not that I'd expect many people to have gifts from their childhood well into adulthood, but that just makes me hyper-aware that almost everything I received has now been used up, donated, or plain old thrown away. 

What I do hold close to my heart is the excitement I felt alongside my fellow elementary school students as we sang songs, watched movies, played in the snow, made crafts, etc. 

The excitement with my family of going out to dinner on Christmas Eve. 

At dinner one year specifically, I recall staring up at the sky and seeing blinking lights - what I now know was a plane - and truly believing I was watching Santa's sleigh fly by. 

The excitement alongside my sister as we shared a room and would lie awake early in the morning counting down the minutes until 8AM - the time our parents had set for when Christmas morning would officially begin. 

The nostalgia comes from the excitement that the adults in my life cultivated, which did include riling me up with excitement about gifts, but it's not the gifts themselves that I look back on fondly. 

What overwhelmed me about receiving and giving gifts? 

Nothing, really. 

I was a naive spoiled kid loving all the material things I received and soaking up the magical holiday vibes, which I am honestly grateful to have experienced growing up. 

What would I change if I could? 

I wish I knew of the privilege I had from a young age. 

Not in an "eat your food because some kids are starving" way because that is a mean tactic and doesn't teach any understanding. 

I was on the cusp of understanding with things like being shown thrifting (in between all the fancy gifts I received) as a fun way of buying unique things. 

I was taught to try donating rather than throwing something out, but I didn't understand the positive environmental and social impact of the practice I was being shown. 

I'm sure these are big topics for kids to understand, but it doesn't mean we shouldn't talk about it. 

I could imagine parents starting with something like, "Isn't it so exciting that these toys will continue to play with other kids because we are donating them?" 

Instead, I developed a spoiled attitude which eventually garnered judgement from other kids because I didn't understand that there were things easy for me to come by that weren't for others. 

Teenager with an Allowance

What excited me about receiving and giving gifts? 

With my immediate family, I was still in the space of being painfully excited for the abundance of gifts I was now expecting on Christmas morning. 

I wasn't like Dudley Dursley counting my gifts or anything, but I had expectations which I'm certain were overwhelming to continuously live up to for my parents. 

In high school, I started getting some unexpected gifts from friends around the holidays, which was fun at first but quickly became overwhelming. 

What overwhelmed me about receiving and giving gifts? 

Receiving surprise gifts from friends felt like entering into some confusing social contract with each friend. 

My thoughts would spiral. 

"It's too close to Christmas to buy them something now, I will just make a note that I need to get them something next year."

"But if I get gifts for the people who gave me gifts last year, am I hurting the feelings of my other friends by not getting them gifts as well?"

Through all this confusion, and some money in my pocket, my first attempt at fulfilling these social contracts was to buy thrifted jewelry for every friend and acquaintance I had at school. 

They all smiled at their gifts and went on with their days, but it felt weird because most of them I didn't know that well, so perhaps I had now pressured them into this social contract setup that I hated. 

The following year, I backpedaled hard and didn't do any gifts beyond bringing some homemade cookies to a skating night with a new group of friends. 

However, this group of friends had been friends for years and, I guess, had their own traditions for celebrating the holidays that I wasn't aware of at the time. 

Something must have been said that prompted me to bring cookies, but when I got there, I was met with expensive gifts from each of them. 

Apparently, we were doing a full-on gift exchange that my allowance would have definitely not been able to afford but their part-time jobs gave them some solid disposable income. 

I tried to show gratitude in that moment but I felt so uncomfortable. 

I pushed the box of cookies closer to the center of the table and made a mental note to come prepared the next year.  

I knew I wouldn't be able to match the quality of their gifts with just my allowance money so I was determined to outdo the quantity. 

I purchased a bunch of cheap but cute stationary products: notebooks, pencil cases, pencils, pens, colouring books, etc. 

I wrapped them all nicely and presented them to the girls at our get-together the following Christmas. 

But they had no gifts for me or each other. 

I was now doing to them what they had done to me the previous year. 

Perhaps they had also made a mental note, but theirs was to not do a gift exchange since I had so clearly not brought anything the previous year? 

To this day, I am still confused. 

What would I change if I could? 

I wish I had understood that a surprise gift from someone does not mean I am now obligated to get them a gift that year or the next. 

Whenever I felt unsure of what someone wanted from me, specifically with gifts from close friends, I wish I had had the know-how and confidence to talk about it with them. 

I now know that it is pretty straight forward to plan defined gift-exchanges with people. 

It would have been a lot for my teenage brain to understand and initiate at the time, but I wish someone had noticed the pressure I felt and had offered some guidance. 

Undergrad Student Working Part-Time

What excited me about receiving and giving gifts? 

I was now working a part-time job so I felt able to get better quality gifts for the people in my life. 

I started dating my partner (now husband) and quickly felt a new pressure with buying for him, and we decided to buy gifts for each other's family members once we started being involved with each other's family celebrations. 

I was privileged to have the school fees for my undergrad paid for by my parents, so my part-time job gave me more money than I had ever had in my bank account and nothing I was required to pay for with it. 

I had cash to burn and what better way to spend it than on a ton of random gifts for the people in my life. 

It was exciting at first to have so many people to buy things for, but once again it became overwhelming. 

What overwhelmed me about receiving and giving gifts? 

I began seeing how expensive the gift-giving practice was with family gift exchanges, but it was manageable enough at the time, so I just went along with it. 

But buying meaningful and/or needed gifts every year for multiple people is a lot, especially when most people don't really want or need all that much. 

My partner and I did start getting strategic, I guess, about receiving gifts by specifically asking our families for things we would need once we moved in together as we knew we were likely to take that step after graduation. 

We were able to store everything we got but didn't yet need in his mom's basement, so when we did ultimately move in together, we already had a lot of essentials. 

It was mostly kitchen stuff we got which was great: dishware, pots, pans, a fancy knife block, a kettle, a toaster. 

We even got gifted a TV which was awesome. 

Once we were ready to move in together, we had so much of what we needed and quickly bought what we were missing, so we didn't need more gifts.  

We were once again stuck in the same overwhelming practice of receiving and giving gifts we didn't want or need. 

It was especially overwhelming with family as they continued feeling the pressure of abundant Christmas mornings for us, even in adulthood, so we were getting multiple gifts from both sets of parents. 

We decided to pitch Secret Santa as a way to still have Christmas morning, but less overwhelmingly, so I'd say our first successful step of limiting receiving and giving gifts was exactly that: 

Do Secret Santa for Christmas with family

It worked for a couple of years, but even with this big decrease in the amount of gifts we were receiving, it still felt like too much for us. 

What would I change if I could? 

I wish I had learned about investing from the time I turned eighteen, or even earlier, and had actually just saved all that money I was earning. 

I'm pretty frugal by nature and I was still into thrifting so I wasn't exactly doing reckless spending but the money I did have was just sitting in a chequing account doing nothing. 

I wouldn't change spending money on different experiences in my undergrad like going out for drinks/meals with friends, seeing shows, etc. 

And I definitely wouldn't change the fact that my partner and I went on a month-long trip around Europe just a few years into dating. 

The main thing that feels wasteful is not investing the money I did save, all the money I spent on gifting random things to other people, and the random things I bought for myself. 

Again, it would have been a lot for my young brain to gain such an understanding of consumerism and the benefits of investing at the time, but more guidance and learning could have definitely been offered. 

I would not have wanted the choice to spend my money to just be taken from me by being forced to invest or something, though. 

But I was an eager learner with a passion for reading, so perhaps putting a fun yet useful book on the topic in my hands would have helped me learn these things sooner.

You Are a Badass at Making Money by Jen Sincero is a solid one that I would recommend to myself at this age if I could, but there are so many options out there for all ages. 

Graduate Student with a Scholarship 

What excited me about receiving and giving gifts? 

At this point, nothing really. 

My partner (now husband) and I had just moved in together and we were starting to see our money as a shared commodity by tracking all our spending monthly. 

This pointed out that while we were thankfully debt-free and living within our means, we didn't have a lot of disposable income.

And we didn't want to spend the little extra money we had on random gifts for other people or even each other. 

As a couple, we easily fell into a habit of getting cards and gifts for each other on our birthdays, our anniversary, Valentine's Day, and Christmas. 

We quickly felt weird spending money on cards, no matter how low the cost, when we could just say the words we would have written in cards to each other aloud. 

From there, we decided to only do gifts for our birthdays but even that has fizzled out because we don't need much new stuff each year and we just buy things when we want them. 

At one point I did really want a surprise gift, specifically earrings, so I told my partner, "I want you to surprise me with new earrings." 

I got all the joy of receiving a gift, I got something I wanted, and I even ended up wearing those earrings on our wedding day and still wear them over 5 years later.

In fact, since we started dating over a decade ago, we are still using many of those gifts we gave each other early in our relationship, which really reinforces our minimalist lifestyle today. 

So I'd say our second successful step at limiting receiving and giving gifts was: 

Say no to gifts and cards between each other as a couple

From there, we started talking openly about this new practice of ours to others when the common question "Are you done all your shopping?" inevitably came up leading to Christmas. 

Through this, we started setting expectations with family and friends in the new year around cards specifically because it felt like the easiest practice to limit with others first. 

So our third successful step was: 

Stop giving cards completely (with a heads up to loved ones)

This was an interesting shift when we stopped giving cards to people in our life, as people stopped giving us cards almost immediately, which was great. 

Then we attended gatherings where others did exchange cards in front of us, and they started questioning why they were doing it, too. 

Over the years, almost all card exchanges have fizzled out without anyone seeming to miss it.

As our respective family dynamics shifted through these years, getting everyone in one spot for Christmas morning became far less straightforward. 

My partner and I realized we found a lot of joy getting together with family earlier in December, as it had all the Christmas vibes while kind of naturally having no expectation of gifts. 

I would call this our fourth successful step: 

Plan get-togethers throughout December rather than just Christmas Eve and Christmas Day

We then had a couple of Christmas mornings spent with just my sister's family where we were able to easily set the expectation that we didn't need any gifts as we were only getting gifts for our nieces. 

Adults are pretty agreeable to shifting the focus of Christmas to young kids entirely, and even then, we set the standard with our nieces that we give small gifts. 

One year we literally gave them cute keychains and they were so excited to put them on their backpacks. 

With this, we have another successful step: 

Shift the focus of receiving and giving gifts to young kids (when possible) 

It wasn't an overnight change with family, but by focusing on just spending time with people - whether with a dinner, a night out to see Christmas lights, or a visit to take a photo with Santa Claus - the new standards for our families were forming. 

And while my partner and I initiated these changes through sharing about our new expectations for gifts as a couple, I like to think I would have still limited things if it was just myself. 

Open conversations about limited funds for giving gifts, limited space for receiving gifts, or limited time to do a bunch of different get-togethers are pretty effective ways to initiate setting boundaries. 

What overwhelmed me about receiving and giving gifts? 

Moving through these steps had varying degrees of success, but it was clunky and the pressure of abundant holidays was still there. 

A big thing I hear when people discuss limiting gifts is to shift to only gifting experiences, consumables, or something the person really needs. 

Well, that's a lovely thing and can work, but this thinking led to us still getting a bunch of stuff even when we thought we made it clear we didn't want or need anything. 

Experiences, usually in the form of a gift card, would ultimately need us to spend money to use up, because no restaurant meal comes out to fifty dollars exactly. 

Consumables can be nice, we especially like getting chocolate or candy, but consumables still take up space. 

And consumables like fancy lotions or candles? 

Those take a long time to actually consume so again, they take up space. 

Marketing initiatives have jumped on this idea of gifting consumables, too, so even the idea of "I'll just get them some tea or chocolate" becomes a big advent calendar or something for those seemingly simple gifts.

These advent calendars can be fun, but for myself, I'm happy with a small tin of tea or a single candy bar if someone does want to gift me something. 

Finally, if the gift exchange focuses on buying each other things we all need, then now it feels like we are just running errands for each other... 

And probably doing a bad job of it because of all the different options out there with brands, sizes, colours, etc. 

When my husband and I do receive something we truly don't need, it becomes a chore to either donate or return the item. 

Now, with all this said, I fear it makes me sound extremely ungrateful. 

I am simply hoping to highlight how we are sold ideas on "limiting" things while still falling into over-consumerism. 

Intentional gifts are a beautiful thing, but when we are receiving and giving so many gifts at once, it is impossible for every gift to have that intentionality behind it. 

Even if everyone hopped on this "experiences/consumables/things they think we need" train, it doesn't necessarily limit the overall amount of gifts. 

While my husband and I have appreciated, and used, a lot of what we have received over the years, it wasn't necessary for us to have a special and magical holiday with friends and/or family. 

But, I will note that it is not helpful to tell someone they don't need to give gifts when celebrating the holidays and opening said gifts, as discussed really well in this video by The Minimalists. 

A good time to start these conversations would be, say, March? 

What would I change if I could? 

Hindsight is 20/20. 

I wish I had known all that I know now about consumerism, what we are being sold through marketing, and the societal pressure that is put on parents to continuously provide an abundance of gifts during the holidays. 

This season of life was the biggest shift in my thinking around gifts for sure, and to make changes was clunky, but I will never regret the boundaries my partner and I started to set at this time. 

Wife Nearing 30 while Unemployed

What excited me about receiving and giving gifts? 

A few big things happened in this season of life. 

My partner and I got married and managed to avoid getting a ton of gifts pretty easily by simply putting on our wedding website "gifts are appreciated but not required," which is basically the polite way of asking for money. 

So, we mainly got money which was great. 

And cards which I made into a beautiful collage with small cutouts from each one. 

Then our first year of marriage was spent unemployed amidst a pandemic. 

Amongst that, just one month into the pandemic, our bedroom flooded due to a pinhole leak in a bathroom pipe. 

We didn't feel comfortable staying with anyone we knew or going to a hotel, so for five nights we slept among every single thing we owned as we had to move everything from our bedroom and bathroom to our living room. 

We didn't have enough space for all our clothes, so we had to literally move our entire wardrobe to our mattress during the day and to our couch during the night. 

It had never been more clear just how much crap we owned after only a few years of living together. 

This experience led to us reading The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo. 

We then spent a whole week following the KonMari method outlined in that book and donated or threw away half of what we owned. 

We shared with everyone we knew about our life-changing shift to minimalism and now people were hilariously cautious to give us any gifts at all. 

Turns out all we had to do to limit receiving and giving gifts was purge half the things we owned so I guess I would call this our sixth successful step: 

Apply the KonMari method from The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo

I'm certain the caution ultimately stemmed from people already seeing us limit gifts in the years leading to this, but this step was definitely most successful overall. 

What overwhelmed me about receiving and giving gifts? 

It was overwhelming to be living through a pandemic. 

It was overwhelming to have our apartment flood. 

It was overwhelming to sit among every piece of crap we owned for multiple days. 

Through all this, though, I am grateful for the changes we made and that it led to us not receiving or giving gifts much at all through this time. 

What would I change if I could? 

If I could change how we got to minimalism, while still ending up at minimalism, I guess I would, but again, I am grateful for the changes we made. 

Present Day (lol)

What excites me about receiving and giving gifts? 

I am now in my thirties, happily married for many years, and working part-time in customer service at the best job I have had yet.  

At this point, my husband and I truly don't expect any gifts, which offers relief knowing we won't have unnecessary stuff entering our apartment. 

What overwhelms me about receiving and giving gifts? 

When we receive gifts these days, they are very intentionally given from people in our life. 

Our favourite chocolate or candy from family at Christmas, art pieces from our nieces, hand-made pottery from friends as a house-warming gift. 

My husband and I plan to continue giving gifts to kids in our life, which just includes our nieces at this point, and even then we don't send them gifts when we aren't there for a holiday in person. 

When we are there for a birthday, we always get them both a gift because one of their birthdays is an easier time to travel compared to the other. 

Sometimes we surprise them with a little gift when we visit on a random weekend. 

Overall, we don't want them to associate excitement at seeing us with the fact that they always get gifts. 

We see them often, even with them living in a different city, and I hope that intentionality and time we continue to spend with them will prove more meaningful and nostalgic than any gifts we could buy. 

What will I change? 

I'm sure navigating gift giving with kids in my husband's and my life will adapt over time as our nieces grow and friends of ours have kids. 

We continue to navigate buying gifts for special occasions like weddings, celebrating our friends buying a house, or other rare special occasions. 

With these times, we hop on the "experiences/consumables/stuff we think they need" train, but we plan to continue keeping gifts small and prioritizing spending time with people over giving gifts at all. 

Conclusion

Through these reflections, some clear steps we took revealed themselves that could hopefully be helpful to readers even with this list being so specific to my husband and me. 

• Do Secret Santa for Christmas with family
• Say no to gifts and cards between each other as a couple
• Stop giving cards completely (with a heads up to loved ones)
• Plan get-togethers throughout December rather than just Christmas Eve and Christmas Day
• Shift the focus of receiving and giving gifts to young kids (when possible) 
• Apply the KonMari method from The Life-Changing Magic of Tidying Up by Marie Kondo

If I were to suggest where to start, I would jump to the last step and to get some how-to steps on applying minimalism. 

At the time of reading Marie Kondo's book, we also read Goodbye, Things by Fumio Sasaki, which is less of a how-to guide but offers a lot of inspiration and insights for living a minimalist life. 

With every step my husband and I took, though, it's clear that managing expectations with gifts comes down to being honest with ourselves about what actually brings us joy and communicating openly with the people in our lives. 

As I'm sure these reflections highlight, these are not always easy things to do, but I hope that with more intentional gift exchanges or even the removal of gift exchanges, we can move towards less wasteful holidays while still feeling the magic. 

A great resource for this topic specifically is Calm Christmas by Beth Kempton as she breaks down holiday values into magic, heritage, abundance, faith, and connection. 

The magic of the holidays, specifically Christmas, is what I continue to hold close to my heart today, and I now see all the ways it was never reliant on gifts. 

For others, different values may stand out and offer guidance with prioritizing what matters most. 

Overall, I hope my husband and I continue to reflect on what is being sold to us at the holidays as necessary versus what we actually want to do with our time and money while prioritizing joy.