I'm judging our friends (Holiday giving)

[Deleted]

And I feel totally fine with it. 

Back story: H and I are in a group with three other couples/ young families. All white, middle class, all employed in white collar jobs, all with our own homes, cars, etc. If we want something within reason, we can usually buy it. 

Last week I suggested that instead of giving each other gifts, we adopt a family through Salvation Army. Everyone was like, "Yeah! Great idea!" So I put together the information and presented it. We could each pitch in about $50 and do something really nice for a needy family in our community.

Our friends responded, "Uh, sorry. That's out of our budget for this holiday season." And, "With a new baby on a way, we can't afford that." Etc. Okay, fine. Everyone has a budget. 

Then today I received an invitation to participate in a gift exchange among the same group of friends. The limit on gifts is $50. 

I'm not impressed.

[Deleted]

farmvillelover- totally!

H and I are still adopting a family. e're able to spend about $200 to adopt a single mother and her 2 year old son. We're taking it out of the budget for gifts to each other.

[flatlan]

Bleh. Why say yes in the first place if you didn't have any intention of following through.

[meltoine]

Some people have political issues with the Salvation Army. Is it possible they do but didn't want to get into a political discussion among friends so used a BS excuse?

[livinitup]

Judge worthy.

I vote be a snark and say something like "Gosh, that's so insensitive, you KNOW everyone just bailed on TSA $50 donation due to budgets. No one can possibly do this." You get to take the high road and call bullshit.

[Deleted]

Nov 26, 2013 23:53:39 GMT -5 meltoine said:

Some people have political issues with the Salvation Army. Is it possible they do but didn't want to get into a political discussion among friends so used a BS excuse?

I suppose it's always a possibility. In initially researching how to "do" this, I found a couple of organizations in town and offered to use an alternative organization if someone wanted to. 

I get really emotional around the holidays. Maybe it's a sort of Yuppie guilt thing. I look around and feel like I have enough STUFF. I want to help people in my community. 

[Deleted]

Nov 27, 2013 0:02:39 GMT -5 livinitup said:

Judge worthy.

I vote be a snark and say something like "Gosh, that's so insensitive, you KNOW everyone just bailed on TSA $50 donation due to budgets. No one can possibly do this." You get to take the high road and call bullshit.

I haven't replied to the email yet, because I really don't know what to say. I'm tempted to say, "For $25 a piece, we could go in together and buy two needy children in our community a warm coat for the winter. Or we could buy each other stupid coffee mugs that I'll just give away in 3 years in an effort to declutter my house. Which would you prefer?"

[FrozenSunshine]

I would decline the invitation with the group.

H and I always adopt a family and/or elder at an assisted living home. As you said, we buy what we want all year long, neither of us wait for Christmas. Our gift to each other is helping the community and a nice dinner out.

[mollybrown]

Definitely lame. I don't understand the appeal of exchanging gifts with other people who can all go out and buy any $50 item they want. I would decline to participate as well.

[cosmos]

Nov 26, 2013 23:53:39 GMT -5 meltoine said:

Some people have political issues with the Salvation Army. Is it possible they do but didn't want to get into a political discussion among friends so used a BS excuse?

This. I would never donate to the SA.

Although I'm not shy about espousing my political opinions...

[stealthmom]

How shitty of them. I'd call them out on their fuckery though. There is no way I could let that go.

[stealthmom]

Nov 27, 2013 0:08:39 GMT -5 @idaholakelady said:

Nov 27, 2013 0:02:39 GMT -5 livinitup said:

Judge worthy.

I vote be a snark and say something like "Gosh, that's so insensitive, you KNOW everyone just bailed on TSA $50 donation due to budgets. No one can possibly do this." You get to take the high road and call bullshit.

I haven't replied to the email yet, because I really don't know what to say. I'm tempted to say, "For $25 a piece, we could go in together and buy two needy children in our community a warm coat for the winter. Or we could buy each other stupid coffee mugs that I'll just give away in 3 years in an effort to declutter my house. Which would you prefer?"

"it's amaaaazing that last week $50 for a needy family was out of everyone's budgets but this week suddenly it's not a problem when it's for you and your friends."

[ddi741]

I don't know, it's one thing to say, you have to give $50 it's another to say you can spend up to $50.

Maybe they plan on doing a $20 gift for the gift exchange.

[Kore]

Nov 27, 2013 3:34:47 GMT -5 stealthmom said:

Nov 27, 2013 0:08:39 GMT -5 @idaholakelady said:

I haven't replied to the email yet, because I really don't know what to say. I'm tempted to say, "For $25 a piece, we could go in together and buy two needy children in our community a warm coat for the winter. Or we could buy each other stupid coffee mugs that I'll just give away in 3 years in an effort to declutter my house. Which would you prefer?"

"it's amaaaazing that last week $50 for a needy family was out of everyone's budgets but this week suddenly it's not a problem when it's for you and your friends."

Nooo. Don't say any of this. It'll only make you look bad.

[crazycakes]

Nov 27, 2013 7:06:19 GMT -5 Kore said:

Nov 27, 2013 3:34:47 GMT -5 stealthmom said:

"it's amaaaazing that last week $50 for a needy family was out of everyone's budgets but this week suddenly it's not a problem when it's for you and your friends."

Nooo. Don't say any of this. It'll only make you look bad.

Definitely. Take the high road here. Don't call anybody out; it just looks petty.

At most, I would say something like, "We are using our gift budget to adopt a family this year, so sorry we won't be able to participate in the gift exchange." 

[dancingirl21]

I would probably take the high road and say what another poster suggested. "We are using our budget to adopt a family this year". I actually think that gets your point across quite well without causing too much drama.

[readyin07]

So was it all the other couples that declined or just one? I would not participate and say the exact same thing as above. But when they all moaned about the $50 per family, I would have lowered the # to maybe $25/couple. Maybe you couldn't adopt a whole family but you could do a nice gesture for a few kids.

[womet]

I would probably participate in both this year. But your friends suck and are selfish. Kudos to you for adopting a mom and son. We adopted an 8 month old boy through SA.

[ECB]

I like crazy cakes response. You mention it w/o being rude.

I couldn't NOT say anything, though.

[Deleted]

Meh. Everyone has their own priorities.

And honestly, Salvation Army is a kind of controversial charity, so maybe there's more to her saying no than you think. I sure as fuck would never give them a dime, but maybe I wouldn't want to get into that with some of my friends.

[Deleted]

I agree, there's no need to be snarky about it. I'll probably participate in the gift exchange just to keep the peace. But I'm still rolling my eyes and judging.

[Deleted]

Nov 27, 2013 7:13:51 GMT -5 crazycakes said:

Nov 27, 2013 7:06:19 GMT -5 Kore said:

Nooo. Don't say any of this. It'll only make you look bad.

Definitely. Take the high road here. Don't call anybody out; it just looks petty.

At most, I would say something like, "We are using our gift budget to adopt a family this year, so sorry we won't be able to participate in the gift exchange." 

My eyes would roll right into the back of my head if a friend said shit like that to me.

Charity is a very personal thing, and people have the right to make their own decisions about what they give to whom and when.  I don't think you should judge people's decisions regarding it.  And it is kind of obnoxious to make a big deal of it like this post suggests.

[winnied]

It's shitty but whatever. You can go ahead and adopt a senior for Christmas.

[imojoebunny]

I don't understand why they just didn't say no to the idea, if they didn't like it. We have our own things we do, and I would not really be into doing something like that with someone else, but I am not such a shrinking violet with my friends, I couldn't just say, hey, we have other charities we focus on for the holidays.

[Deleted]

Give them this for the exchange.

[crazycakes]

Nov 27, 2013 8:39:12 GMT -5 v said:

Nov 27, 2013 7:13:51 GMT -5 crazycakes said:

Definitely. Take the high road here. Don't call anybody out; it just looks petty.

At most, I would say something like, "We are using our gift budget to adopt a family this year, so sorry we won't be able to participate in the gift exchange." 

My eyes would roll right into the back of my head if a friend said shit like that to me.

Charity is a very personal thing, and people have the right to make their own decisions about what they give to whom and when.  I don't think you should judge people's decisions regarding it.  And it is kind of obnoxious to make a big deal of it like this post suggests.

How is this reply making a big deal out of anything? I would be more annoyed that they have a BS excuse than anything.  And then were dumb enough to include me on an invite for a gift exchange after lying to me. I wool hope my friends could be honest and just say they don't want to/don't like the SA/already do their own charity thing/whatever.

But I also think gift exchanges among friends are weird, so there's that.

[Deleted]

Nov 27, 2013 8:53:10 GMT -5 @mx said:

Nov 27, 2013 8:46:41 GMT -5 oceanspray said:

By saying they couldn't afford to participate to me implies they couldn't afford to participate in anything.

I think a better answer would have been, "Oh I'm sorry, we've already donated our allotted amount to charities." Saying, "That's out of our budget for the holiday season with the new baby" to me implies they were done with gift exchanging, period. I would be annoyed.

I realize this post is pointless because they've already said why they "couldn't" participate. Or they could have suggested another charity if they were so against Salvation Army.

If they've already given $10,000 to charity this year by splitting it up month by month I don't think it's unreasonable to say "well I want to spend the remaining $50 funds I have available this year on my good friends." I mean...no one here, OP included knows how much these friends give to charity vis a vis the OP so the judging seems stupid and petty. I'm not saying they are required to give 10k to opt out. I'm saying unless you have access to their bank statements, judging someone's charitable giving seems pointless because you don't actually know anything about it.

I would be pretty pissed if my good friends were going around decrying my charitable attributes because I didn't participate in their preferred form of highly visible giving.

I don't judge peoples' charitable giving and you're right, they might have already given a million billion dollars to charity this season. But the scenario you describe is different from agreeing to a charitable donation IN LIEU OF a gift exchange, then backing out because it is out of their budget, then proposing a gift exchange for the exact amount of money discussed for the charitable donation. 

It is legit that they might rather do a gift exchange than a charitable donation but they should have just said that outright if that was the case.

[Deleted]

Nov 27, 2013 7:52:59 GMT -5 v said:

Meh. Everyone has their own priorities.

And honestly, Salvation Army is a kind of controversial charity, so maybe there's more to her saying no than you think. I sure as fuck would never give them a dime, but maybe I wouldn't want to get into that with some of my friends.

See, my first reaction was this. While if that's the case, she should have had the balls to say so, she might not have wanted to get into her political views with you. I know that there are some in my family who feel this way about Angel.Tree.

I'd chalk it up to this, if they're otherwise good pals, and move on. It's also one of those things, "no one else gets to spend your $".

[Deleted]

Nov 27, 2013 7:13:51 GMT -5 crazycakes said:

Nov 27, 2013 7:06:19 GMT -5 Kore said:

Nooo. Don't say any of this. It'll only make you look bad.

Definitely. Take the high road here. Don't call anybody out; it just looks petty.

At most, I would say something like, "We are using our gift budget to adopt a family this year, so sorry we won't be able to participate in the gift exchange." 

Agreed.

[kadams767]

Nov 27, 2013 9:01:35 GMT -5 @mx said:

Isn't that just semantics? If the reason they can't afford it is because they'd already mentally allocated that $50 to their gifts for friends are they required to spell out their entire budget to justify their position?

Are we really obligated to break down the reasons something isn't in our budget? If my friend invites me on a girls weekend I'm not super into and therefore isn't something I want to pay for, do I really have to tell her "sorry but that isn't in my budget because I spent $600 drunkenly playing candy crush?" No. It's none of her business. The thing she has invited me to do is not something I'm very into. Hence not in my budget assumig my budget is not unlimited.

For the record I did not spend $600 playing candy crush.

No, of course you aren't obligated to break down why something isn't in your budget.  But I think the OP's point here is that she mentioned the charity thing to the group of friends instead of doing their usual gift exchange, and they all agreed to it, and then they backed out saying they couldn't afford it, BUT THEN organized the gift exchange anyhow.  It's all the same pot of money.