Christmas present for NPD family member (pain, father, child, stop)

[MilleeT]

My husband and I had a prolonged and nasty experience with my NPD sister in the summer which was so atrocious that we feel we cannot contemplate further friendly contact with her again. She, in the meantime, is using 'hoovering' tactics to pretend that nothing ever happened. Unfortunately it will not be possible to cut off all contact with her at the moment as our father is still alive and lives near my sister so we have to visit quite often, though we have managed to avoid actually seeing my sister so far and have only had one brief phone conversation about something to do with my father.

At Christmas, in the past, we have usually gone across to my father's (100 mls away) and spent a few days, seeing the rest of the family (+ two other siblings, one also an unpleasant piece of work, the other one nice, and their children) and exchanging presents. We can't stomach this now so are planning to collect my father after Christmas to come to us for a few days, with as quick a turnaround as possible to avoid invitations that might be attempted to make us feel uncomfortable. I don't feel I can stop sending presents to my sister's family as her husband and adult children have done us no harm. I have no idea what she has told them about the issue in the summer but am sure that she will have said something and that we will not have been painted in a good light. So I'm thinking of sending up a joint present to the whole of her family from all of ours, delivered by courier the week of Christmas. The plan is to gradually phase out present-giving which, when my father is no longer with us, will be straightforward since we won't need to travel to be with him.

I suppose I'm writing this because I'd like to know what others think is a good solution to this situation. I can't believe we find ourselves in it.

[HighFlyingBird]

A family gift of food might be a nice gesture. Don't spend too much, it might end up in the trash.

We used to get gifts for all the nieces and nephews but we all sort of settled on a family food gift and a small gift for the ones who are still young. Inlaws have followed suit.

[Gerania]

My family phased out adult gift giving because there were too many people. My brother started it because his new wife had eight siblings and several of them had children. That, uh, problem just grew and grew. We started giving a family gift, usually food, but maybe something useful or fun.

Buy a gift for the family. Buy a card and write something in it that sounds nice. Say Hi! to the kids and ask about the cat. Whatever. You don't have to see them.

[MilleeT]

Thanks HighFlyingBird and Gerania. I'm going with the food gift, not really going to try too hard to think of novelty or fun ideas as 'she who must be obeyed' will just think she's got me back on board again. Just want to do enough not to be accused of cutting them all off.

[Rowan123]

You could always donate to a charity in their name.

[MilleeT]

Thanks for the thought - it did cross my mind but perhaps this time it would be too great a step backwards though certainly to be considered in future.