I agree. To put x-tra stress on your time and money at that time of year is crazy.
In my family what we decided to do is to buy birthday gifts. We have one birthday getogether each month.
We go out. So someone else does the cooking and cleanup and they wait on us. Everyone pitches in for the birthday persons dinners and we give gifts.
No cleaning the house before and after. No cooking all day.
We get to see our aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers, sisters and all their kids more often. Makes it easy to keep up with everyone.
Then for the Holidays we have pitchins at someone house. We combine any birthdays that month with this party. Then some times we all go to a movie or the zoo or something like that. We take turns hosting, so each family just has one party maybe once every two years or so. No spending days shopping for gifts, hours standing in lines. No staying up past midnite wraping and have more rest while everyone else is busy going crazy. Oh, have more money in your pocket.
Every fall we rent a campground with little cabins and a kitchen lounge/dinning room building. We have a big clan outing. We go on friday night and come home Sunday afternoon.
We have puzzle, craft, game, tables. There is a hayride, hiking and swimming. We have a family meeting to talk about all the upcoming family events, the use of the family fund and show and tell of any genealogy finds.
Each family prepares one meal for everyone else. On Sunday morning we have leftover brunch.
It's always a great time.