One that we do at a club belong to is a bunch of fun. When you arrive at the party you pick a number out of the hat and put the gift on the gift table. When the gift exchange starts they call the numbers in order. That person gets to choose a gift from the table. Then the next number is called, that person can either choose a gift or steal someone elses, the person that lost their gift then has to either choose from the table or steal, but they are not permitted to steal the one they just lost. We put a 30 second time limit on 'steals'. It really is a fun time, and there is always one gift that everyone is after.

Dances, Thank you for the cookie recipe! I no longer have the stamina to mix a big batch of cookies together and then bake them all, but this is doable. Mix, put in fridge for when I want them, bake as many as I want at a time (I even used the toaster oven for a few), and they taste great! SharonG/FL

Here's another item I think could be fun (I want one!) It's the Boogie Board (again, it's at a higher price right now on A, I've seen it at $27). I first saw it at Brookstone (or was it Sharper Image? get those two stores mixed up). BTW Brookstone/SI are two stores good for finding unique gifts for people who have everything. Another idea is to get them a Christmas decoration, a fancy ornament for the tree for instance. When my MIL was alive she was the hardest person to buy for, didn't seem to like or want anything. Until I stopped looking inside and turned my attention outside. The only time I made a hit with her with a gift was the stone puppy dog I bought for her garden. Never occurred to me before to buy her a garden ornament but it was the one thing she didn't have. I have lots of ideas for hard to please people because I've got plenty of them in my family. ;-) If you know what they like to eat you can usually do pretty good with gift baskets of specialty foods, the gourmet kind that they haven't tried before. Here is a link that might be useful: Boogie Board

I am sort of in Aprile's situation, except many long-distance gifts. I send gifts to my nephew and his mother every year and get a box of stale cookies from her in return (I think she even froze some of mine and sent them back. I tasted one and threw the rest away this year--so stale!) He is 27 and calls to thank me but never sends anything, even a card. My neighbor friend gives me cookies even though I tell her I don't like to eat sweets and think I'm diabetic. I usually give her handmade things--crochet towels, dried flowers, whatever cookies I have left that I didn't give away. So it's no big gift exchange. But I froze all the sweets from her and others, maybe will have to give them to other neighbors. I do have a couple friends who send me things I like, and I enjoy planning gifts for them. But I'm thinking about trying to cut down next year. I asked my nephew if I could just send $ this year and he said no, he likes my gifts! Someone else demanded I send shortbread. I shipped 6 boxes altogether and it cost $115 in shipping, and was exhausting. (I did receive a an unexpected knickknack and sent anazon prime gift in time.) Just trying to figure out how to tell people I'm not sending boxes next year. And then there's a neighbor who some years drops off a cranberry loaf early in the morning when I am barely dressed and unprepared to reciprocate and of course mortified. I would not knock on their door in the morning without warning. So how do you say I'm not doing this and please stop (expecting gifts/giving me sweets,...)?