I buy what is needed when it is needed.

Running around buying a bunch of crap just because the calendar says so is insane.

That includes $50 for the family gift swap.

The rest of my family splits $10 + the balance of my Amazon gift cards.

My youngest brother is the easiest...every year I buy him a book by a long-dead author he'll never read in hardcover off the discount rack and he's excited because he puts it on the bookshelf in his bedroom and the barflies he brings home think he's smarter than he really is because he owns real books.

The older brother is easy too...no matter what I buy him he hates it and considers it to somehow reflect on our dysfunctional relationship. We don't actually have a dysfunctional relationship...He thinks I'm aimless and lazy and I generally agree but don't care because at-least I'm not doing a job I hate that makes me unhappy for too little money and waiting for it to make me happy. He's unhappy.

My parents are hard. I actually care that they like their gifts. My stepfather has taken to asking for socks because my mother explicitly forbids me from buying the things he wants...like a chainsaw or an indoor botanical garden or a bonzai tree or a shotgun or porn or candy or a bulldozer or hedge-clippers. My mother wants one thing...the hardcover of the latest Stephen King book. Whichever son buys that for her is her favorite and the other two get sad looks like "Well, they tried."

($854 according to this link in 2012)

http://www.investopedia.com/financial-edge/1112/average-cost-of-an-american-christmas.aspx

($801 according to this link for 2013)
http://americanresearchgroup.com/holiday/

^^ The above also lists costs for previous years:

Year Average Spending Percent Change
2013 $801 - 6%
2012 $854 + 32%
2011 $646 - 2%
2010 $658 + 58%
2009 $417 - 3%
2008 $431 - 50%
2007 $859 - 5%
2006 $907 - 4%
2005 $942 - 6%
2004 $1,004 + 3%
2003 $976 - 6%

Other links I see say about the same.

Probably not the best idea of course, but the money is coming out of savings I DO have so it's not debt.

Our family spends way too much on average and trust me we are not wealthy. But given the numbers I posted above of $800 on average per American I guess we are somewhere in that range most Christmases.

Sometimes more. But then he's never been one to save, in our family they split their expenses since they can never agree on money. My father is a spend thrift, my mother does all the saving. And yeah we are not wealthy.

I quit Christmas in 1998. I reluctantly attend a small family dinner and that's it.

we stopped gifts years ago but still buy food and fun at Christmastime!! (extra money on rum balls and eggnog)