Exchanging gifts - do you include your friends in this tradition?

that's what email and IM is for girl! i grew up in a very large family. my grandfather use to say, "it's to many of ya'll to have a bunch of friends, so if you find one you like keep'em. i grew up in a house of no less then 13 people at a time. so having friends over was not something we could do. so keep those friends that you really did love was important to us growing up.

I do keep in touch with some of them, but I've lost touch with my best friend from high school. I'm still bummed about that because we were very close, we've both been through horrible divorces, hers worse than mine because she had a son at the time and chose to try to inflict as little trouble on him as possible by letting him stay with his dad - that turned out to be a huge mistake. I did try to stay in touch and multiple times to get BACK in touch, but a phone works both ways you know, and so does email, and so does IM, and when someone does not return the favor after awhile, well, what can I say? My daughter and her middle son are just 3 months apart in age, the last time I saw her, the kids were babies. I've learned more and more as I get older that one person cannot maintain multiple relationships with other people who don't seem interested in putting forth effort - minimal even - to stay in touch. I'm too busy to reach out over and over when nothing comes back, know what I mean?

How sweet! I am no longer in regular touch with the friends i've known since I was 5 - not enough to have current addresses to send gifts. I may phone them though. Friends you've had forever are special, I wish that moving away hadn't made it so hard for me to stay in touch.

Oooh what is it? Is that your best friend with you in the picture? I have a few things picked out for my best friend but I haven't figured out a nice way to put them together.

LOL!! Yes, ok that would be very unwise for it to be MY fault she finds out. You can pm it to me, I won't tell her

Yeah thats her in the picture with me and i can't say on here what it is, because she will she it because she is on here as well. You know moonlitmagikchild..she'll find this and know and it would all be ruined.

Where do you live? That sounds like so much fun! I've been involved with secret santa giving before, and also the gift exchanges where everyone brings a gift and they all get put on a table. Each person draws a number one at a time - and after the first person you can either pick a new gift or take a gift from someone else lol. The only catch is that you have to open the gift when it's your turn, and someone can steal it from you twice before you're safe.

I don't even purchase separate gifts for all my family members. My parents I usually send one gift plus a gift card, my sister and bil usually get a combined gift - I do buy for my nieces separately though. My other sister and bil just got married in Sept and she is expecting a baby, so I'll probably get them a combined gift plus something for the baby (due in June). I don't send to all my aunts and cousins and their families... that is TOO many people! Like I said earlier though, I do send cards to about 35-40 people, as well as pass them out to friends here.

If it came down to it and I couldn't do any gifts outside my family, I'd probably just do gifts for my husband and kids. My friends know I care, sometimes they get things 'just because' throughout the year. I do cards too... I figure that's sending a little cheer. I have a large card holder that I keep in my entry and put all the cards on it as they arrive during the season.

I love just getting together to socialize. I'm going to suggest that for a few of my friends as it gets closer to the holidays. Maybe we can just go have sushi or go out for dessert - without all the kids of course. I think between all of us we have like... 11 kids. Errr... 15 kids!

Well I only buy for a couple friends - close friends, and their kids. I don't usually spend a lot, but the gifts are thoughtful purchases that fit my friends and remind me of them - or are things they love that they NEVER buy for themselves.

I only have a few special friends that I buy for, but I also buy for their kids. I've done secret santa before and also secret mom within a group of friends. When I worked, we'd draw names and do a gift exchange too, and that was always fun. I do send custom xmas cards to the friends and family that I don't buy gifts for lol!