What his mother expects should be irrelevant . You ' re Jake ' s girlfriend . It ' s not your responsibility to appease his mother ' s demands . He didn ' t take a stand then . Taking a stand means you hold your position . If mother gives gifts in Jake ' s name , Jake says you got a gift from me ? How strange , I didn ' t get you anything . My mother seems to be really off the rails with this one ! , and to her , he says I can ' t believe you ' re impersonating me on gifts . That ' s absurd . I ' m not going to pay you for gifts you chose to buy without my involvement , and you need to stop putting my name on anything . If he ' s not willing to stand up to his family , it ' s your choice to go into debt to meet their expectations and prepare to do that the rest of your life , find some way to give something small so you at least don ' t go into debt , and disappoint them anyway , take a stand , and be known as Jake ' s stingy , awful girlfriend and get blamed for changing him if he ever does learn to stand up for himself , or look at the bigger picture , realize that if he can ' t stand up to his mother over something as small as Christmas presents , he ' s going to let her run over him on wedding planning , home purchasing , and childrearing as well , and reconsider the future of the relationship if he ' s unwilling to take a stand for his adult independence .