The relative who caused all the problems refuses to go to Christmas eve services with us, (he's a liberal, what can I say), so he doesn't travel here for Christmas anymore. He and his uber-liberal wife stay where they are and probably talk smack about us for the day.
The year, when I finally said, "Enough" was when my BIL's live in girlfriend of two years (whom I had met one time and never met her son with another guy) complained to another party that we sent gifts to her, the BIL and my BILs daughter (with another woman) but not to her kid who we had never met and only lived with them 50 percent of the time.
At that point, I just said, "Why am I doing this" and I stopped. Best decision ever.
“Christmas has been so much happier since we made the decision to stop the gifts. We go to church services Christmas eve, make a nice breakfast Christmas morning, and there is no more of the stress.”
We probably all have someone in our family like that - never happy and don’t want anyone else to be. I feel sad for them but we can’t do anything about it. It sounds as if you’re keeping everything in focus though.
For me, anymore, just trying to come up with something that no one has is beyond stressful. If they needed something, it would be different. Then the other side of it is I end up feeling very guilty when I know someone can’t afford the gift they’ve given me.
That’s no way to celebrate Christmas and it looks like this will be our year to shake off the shackles of the frenzied shopping trips and coming home empty-handed, and feeling deep-down emptiness to boot. Shopping will be fun when there are babies to buy for, but right now - just UGH!