sgusers5的部落格

Source: South Bend Tribune, Ind.迷你倉Dec. 24--A Christmas gift exchange is more than just than a chance to give and receive gifts from family members or co-workers.Gift exchanges are also an opportunity to add to the joys of the holiday -- or the stress.How can families and workplaces ensure that their exchange is fun rather than frustrating?Much of the stress relates to how much to spend on gifts and whether people feel obligated to participate, according to Cyndi Basker, owner of the South Bend-based event planning company Celebrated Events.The first thing organizers of gift exchanges want to do it eliminate that stress."In terms of how much you should spend, that should be established before anything else," Basker says.Basker adds that organizers should be aware that participants may have different financial situations. Family gift exchanges will include people who are on fixed incomes and workplace exchanges include managers and hourly workers, according to Basker.Hilary Flanagan, director of the Career Center at the University of Notre Dame, says that organizers shouldn't assume that everyone wants to participate."With your family you want to make sure that everybody is in agreement ahead of time and try to come up with parameters in terms of is there going to be a ceiling on how much you can spend," she says.Some families limit gift exchanges to the adults. Some couples buy one large gift, while others choose to buy individual gifts.And how do families handle gifts for significant others?Flanagan says her family will hold an exchange this year that will include the fianc? of one of her sisters."She's newly engaged, but her boyfriend has been around for Christmas, so we all got together and got him something," she says,"And for the last couple of years, he gave us something as a family ."So unless someone has some kind of whirlwind romance, (the significantothers) are kind of broken in over time."That's assuming that they want to participate, and Basker and Flanagan both say that's something organizers should not assume."(Gift exchanges) should always be organized so that people can opt out," Flanagan says."You shouldn'自存倉 feel that you are being made to do it."The No. 1 rule of etiquette is not to make people feel uncomfortable."That is especially true for workplace gift exchanges."As far as workplace exchanges, you have to be careful not to be too personal with gifts," Basker notes. "You may know the people you work with but you don't want to get a gift (where there will be anassumption) of more of a relationship than actually exists."People in workplace settings can also opt for low- pressure gift exchanges such as the "white elephant exchange" conducted by the Bridges Out of Poverty staff.Staff regifted items from their homes, according to director Bonnie Bazata."We know that we've got a lot of staff on a tight budget (and) we never wanted it to feel like an obligation," Bazata says.Erin Kelly, a student at Indiana University South Bend and an AmeriCorps volunteer, organized the exchange. Kelly says the staff turned the exchange into a game.All of the gifts were placed on a table. Staff members rolled a pair of fuzzy dice and selected a prize whenever they rolled a double."Once the table was cleared, we kept the dice going and if a person who did not have a gift rolled a double, they got to steal a gift from a person who had (more than one)," Kelly says. "In the end, everyone has at least one gift."There is an app for people who need help to organize a Secret Santa gift exchange, according to Flanagan. She says sites such as elfster.com and namedrawing.com allow organizers to send e-mails to everyone participating on the exchange.Someone might still leave the exchange feeling as if they got a rotten gift. How should a person respond if they received the equivalent of a lump of coal?"The last thing you want to do if something like that happens is make a big deal," Flanagan says. "The thing to do when you get a gift like that is to say thank you."The organizers can address the issue when planning next year's gift exchange.HDukes@SBTinfo.com574-235-6369Copyright: ___ (c)2013 the South Bend Tribune (South Bend, Ind.) Visit the South Bend Tribune (South Bend, Ind.) at .southbendtribune.com Distributed by MCT Information Services迷你倉