Help! What to do when people ignore a ‘no presents’ rule at Christmas?

I need some advice. We are going away as a family for Christmas this year – not abroad or anything; down to Cornwall – and everyone has agreed that we won’t “do” presents. We are splitting the cost of the holiday and, as my mother likes to point out on the WhatsApp group, “just being together is enough”. She’s right, of course, but experience tells me she doesn’t really believe it. I know exactly what is about to happen. Powerless to stop it.

Certain people – myself; my father – will have diligently followed the rules. We will have read the WhatsApp missive about no presents and thought, “Right, that means no presents.” Other people – mother, sister, elder sister – will not have followed the rules. These people, I have found, tend to interpret “no presents” as “lots of presents”, to be delivered with love on Christmas morning, accompanied by the words, “honestly, it’s nothing, just a token”. Very nice for the present givers, who get to feel all warm (smug?) inside. Less so for those of us who followed the rules (have I mentioned them?) and now feel foolish and ungenerous.

I have nothing against buying and giving presents; nor do I really mind if we don’t “do” them. But I do take umbrage with some people’s cavalier attitude to the rules. It’s cheating. So what to do?

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Option one: preempt all this and buy presents for everyone. Sounds sensible but my father won’t do this, absolutely will not do this, so I would only be furthering his embarrassment. Option two: dig in, eagerly accept the presents, make no apology whatsoever, and explain, if pushed (or pissed), that the present givers only have themselves to blame. I like this idea in theory but it doesn’t actually work in practice. You can’t make yourself not feel guilty.

So I need your advice. There must be a third option, a clever way of getting around all this. One idea I had was to say, on receiving the gifts, that mine hadn’t arrived yet, Amazon is a disgrace and Royal Mail even worse. But who’s going to believe that? Alternatively, I could message everyone beforehand and say: “To be clear, we are not doing presents? Will be extremely cross if people do.” But that risks genuinely upsetting the present givers, who will already have bought by now, before the holiday has even started. I don’t mind this in principle but, surely, there’s a better way?

Please send your suggestions to letters@independent.co.uk or write a comment below – the clock is ticking and I’m getting desperate. Thank you in advance and Happy Christmas!

Yours,

Rupert Hawksley

Voices senior commissioning editor