Every year for the holiday season people tend to spend lots of money on gifting, which can put a huge dent in people's finances. I know there is a lot of emotion attached to gift giving, so some people are reluctant to change how they do things. However, if people would like another suggestion on how to give gifts, here is how we did it this year, something that we've had as a tradition already for a few years.
Before anything, I have to say that I have mixed feelings about gift exchanges, because they can be hit or miss. I took part in a gift exchange this year between friends and got a really sucky gift, but oh well.
Gift exchanges can be really great, though, if people put an effort into it. The gift exchange that I was part of that was between friends gave a really thorough questionnaire. It asked what people's hobbies were, what they liked, what genres of books and movies they liked, if they collect anything specific, if they prefer something mass produced or individually made, if they prefer consumables or non consumables, and if there's anything they'd particularly like as a gift. I liked how thorough the questionnaire was. If, for example, I'd have a person who was an animal lover and collected funky mugs, I totally would have gotten her a mug with an anthropomorphized (made to look like a person) dog or cat, because that would be a perfect gift for a dog or cat lover, especially one who collected funky mugs. But gift exchanges should specify the price range for the gift, so that everyone gets approximately the same value of a gift.