It gets complicated, but to give you an idea, early last December, my mother told me, “I don’t have the foggiest notion what to buy the grandkids, so I’ll give you money and let you shop.” I took the cash and then called each of my three kids and relayed the message: “Granny doesn’t have the foggiest notion what to buy your (sister or brother), so I’ll give you her money and let you shop. By the way, I’m fresh out of ideas, too, so keep your eyes open for a gift from me and Dad for your (sister or brother).” I sent cash.

Meantime, my avoid-shopping-at-all-costs husband called the three kids and relayed the message: “Can you pick out something for me that will make your mother happy? She still hasn’t used the wheelbarrow I bought her last year.” He sent cash.

Then I heard from my daughter. “I was thinking of buying Granny a cookbook, but I don’t know what cookbooks she already owns. Can you check on the sly and then buy her a cookbook...? If not a cookbook, then just buy her another set of cake pans. I’ll pay you back.”

Then my brother-in-law called and said he’d like to get my sister a nice sweater and needed me to pick it out for him... Then my youngest son called and said that he was stumped on what to buy for his dad, but it really didn’t matter, anyway, because he had 13 cents to his name until he could sell his wardrobe on eBay. I sent cash...

With each day, the outsourcing of who’s-buying-what-for-whom became as tangled as the wad of six strands of Christmas lights that we’d hastily tossed into a garbage bag the previous year.

On Christmas Day, all of us truly were surprised when we unwrapped our gifts. My sister got a cookbook featuring blessed recipes for church suppers, my husband got a sweater that makes him look like a pregnant pilgrim, and my mother got a re-gifted wheelbarrow. The kids ended up with a nice wad of cash.

Excerpted from a piece by Marti Attoun, in the Chicago Tribune, December 23