How to Stop Receiving Gifts
If you'd like to stop receiving gifts at the holidays, how can you go about it and remain socially acceptable?
After many years of living an alternative, low-waste lifestyle, I have my routine down. I don’t find it all that difficult and enjoy it immensely. But sometimes, well-intentioned friends and family wanting to do something nice for me try to give me stuff I just don’t want. They may not understand what zero waste means or they may not take my lifestyle seriously. And I probably haven’t explained well why I don’t want gifts. Or they might not realize that I don’t merely write about this stuff; I live by my religion. And I am observant.
If you no longer want to receive gifts—either the quality stuff or the landfill in transition—with some friends and family, you can have a frank discussion about gift giving and with others, you simply cannot. The following suggestions won’t work in every situation. But if you can convince even a few people to fulfill your request, you’ve made progress!
1. Ask them what they need
With some loved ones, you may have no idea how to broach the subject of exchanging gifts. You might start the conversation by asking them what they really need this year. They may need intangibles—bike repair, professional decluttering, help paying their heating bill. If so, that will break the ice.
2. Manage expectations
To reduce disappointment, let your family and friends know well in advance that you no longer want to receive gifts. Before Mother’s Day a couple of years ago, I asked my kids (a few times) to please donate to 350.org in lieu of a gift. MK had already been donating to 350.org monthly, so she donated to NRDC in my name.
If you’re planning a birthday party or wedding or baby shower and don’t want gifts, drive the message home by adding “No Gifts Please” to the invitations.
3. Explain why you no longer want to exchange gifts
Tell your friends and family that you don’t have room in your home for more stuff, that your kids have too many toys as it is, that your home is a plastic-free zone, that you’re broke and can’t buy anyone gifts and so accepting them will feel awkward, that you just Maria Kondo’d your home and have it just the way you want it or whatever other reason you think will do the trick.
4. Tell them how they benefit
This is your best bet for convincing people to do things that they do not want to do. Tell them what’s in it for them. Point out that they will save money and time by not shopping and will experience less stress worrying about what to get you.
5. Suggest some alternative gifts
If they still really want to do something for you, tell them you’d love to spend time together (in person if possible and if not, over Zoom) or you crave a batch of their gooey chocolate chip cookies or you’d love an online subscription to your favorite news site or you’ll take the cash instead (okay, maybe don’t say that).
Here is a list of experiences as gifts (and a couple of tangible ones).
6. Go to the top
If everyone in your family listens to your commanding grandmother, for example, enlist her to your cause if possible. This will help others fall in line.
7. Realize that some people will continue to buy you gifts you don’t want or need
No matter how well you explain your desire to opt out of exchanging gifts, or how often you explain it, some people will insist on giving you gifts. Just accept that they haven’t heard you and thank them for the present.
When my daughter MK was a toddler, her great grandmother sent crappy gifts—once literally! One Christmas, Great Grandma sent MK a secondhand onesie with a wide brown stain down the inside back.
After that experience, MK and I practiced how to receive gifts with gratitude rather than a dry heave. I would hand MK an imaginary gift and tell her what was inside. She would pretend to open it, look up at me and say, “Thank you for the box of dirt.”
8. Be diplomatic
Preachy does not work. When someone gives your child yet another junky plastic toy built to break, resist the temptation to get angry and yell “Are you trying to kill more whales?!” You won’t win any supporters if you judge people.
You might not want to then and there say “Please don’t buy us presents.” The person will feel insulted. Try numbers 1 and 2 later on before the next gift-giving occasion. (It depends on the person though.)
9. But at the same time, stop worrying so much about being nice
Some social norms need to end—including the exchange of throwaway gifts on every occasion and the expectation that women please everyone all of the time. (Ninety percent of my readers are women.)
We now have less than 10 years to implement the drastic measures necessary to keep warming from exceeding 1.5C between 2030 and 2052, according the the UN’s IPCC report. We’re on track to hit 3C by the end of the century, which threatens our very civilization. I can’t imagine worse fires than we experienced this fall in Northern California but that’s where we are headed.
These dire warnings—and the fires—put things into perspective. We can no longer continue to consume mindlessly, often for stuff we don’t actually need. If my pleas for no gifts render me a nasty woman, so be it. The parts of my brain that deal with worry are busy with other concerns.
One of the best gifts I've received: a gift certificate to a local CSA. Even though I couldn't use it immediately because my existing CSA was already overloading me with delicious farm-fresh produce, I used it the next season.
By contrast, for years after everyone else got the message, my father kept buying me books. I told him I would take it to the bookstore that bought used books and get $5 for the $25 he spent and read a copy from the library across the street from me.
Still, after a few years he got the picture. In other words, polite persistence helps.
I cannot stress enough how important the actual cooking of Christmas dinner or lunch is as a family activity. No single person should be alone to stress about everything coming out perfect while the rest drink and make merry. Time spent with family in the kitchen is part of the gift that is being able to be with loved ones over this holiday.
The one new addition I'm trying to add is that since 2020 has been such a full-on year everyone will bring a news item to read out or discuss between dinner and dessert - it can be heartwarming, funny, ridiculous, important...just anything that happened this year and we can talk about it and hopefully feel a bit more grateful for what we have and what we have achieved this year, instead of dumping a bunch of unnecessary 'gifts' on eachother.