First time posting so sorry if this doesn't fit the format and if it reads weird etc, I just thought it would be better to do it from my perspective. 

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As a precursor this is not a story about me but about one of my best friends, who I have known for 16+ years and so am intimately familiar with her family dynamics. She recounted this story to me and it has been ongoing for a couple of weeks now. 

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So to start things off my friend (21), upon finding a relatively lucrative job following leaving school has found herself in a position of some financial stability, though is by no means financially independent as she has to support her household a lot, and is presently one of two of the six of her dads children who can drive. If she wants something then she can buy it, and she lives at home with two of her siblings whilst contributing towards the upkeep for her home significantly. Her family are all either her age or older aside from her younger sister (16) and half have reasonable jobs which keep them afloat, the other half do not and get a lot from welfare. Since she has a well paying job her family use her as effectively their personal ATM, all of them constantly ask her if they can borrow money as well as effectively demanding lifts from her; if she refuses then they get pretty annoyed. They take her very much for granted, and expect her to do things for them without any consideration of her life or her feelings. One example of which for perspective, is one of her sisters asking her for a lift to the shops which are a 10 minute walk with her three children for a quick shopping trip, then leaving them in the car with my her to mind for **an hour** (which she didn't say she was going to do) whilst she went and did whatever shopping she needed to do. My friend then gave them all a lift to their dad's house which she didn't mind, but as soon as her sister wanted to leave she expected my friend to drop what she was doing and take her back without having even asked, no please and no thank you. 

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Now this is not to say my friend won't do all these things, as they're her family she tries to help them all out as best she can but on the whole they are all very ungrateful for the things she does for them. It frustrates her when they take liberties and expect things from her without actually considering to ask. A couple of them will often get her to give them money by saying it's because they can't afford things for their children, even though she lends the money with that purpose which they then spend of doing things for themselves. 

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Now with that in mind, this Christmas as my friend was doing financially okay she wasn't particularly concerned about the gifts she received and so said to each of her family members that in lieu of buying everyone a present this year she would donate to a charity of their choice instead. She said she didn't need a present herself, and so if they wanted to do that as well they could. The previous year she had bought her brother a lamp as his present, so to her this made a lot more sense as someone else would get a lot more use out of it. What's more is that one of her nephews is critically ill with a heart defect, and so charity to their family is important as it's helping to fund research for the treatment he needs. It's worth noting here this is in England so other than travelling to different hospitals (which my friend has to do for her sister 99% of the time, missing work because the other drivers in the family won't do it), there are no costs. 

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When she announced that this is what she would be doing, **shit hit the fan**. She received tirades of abusive texts, all with the theme that she doesn't get to decide that their presents should be given to charity. Her parents argument was that she should have just left it at her presents from them being donated, not both ways. She maintains this is what she's going to do, but she will buy something for her dad, which I wholeheartedly support as he works hard to help her. 

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I personally think that it's a fantastic idea and that with the amount that she does for them everyday is Christmas. Having said that, I would be very selfishly disappointed not to receive presents of Christmas from my siblings. Whatever she would have got them though with the amount she would have spent, they can all easily buy the same for themselves as through either work or benefits they do have enough money to cover the cost of her gift.

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So yeah, is she the asshole for not buying her siblings tangible Christmas gifts? 

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**tl;dr incredibly generous friend decided to donate to charity rather than buying her siblings presents and suggests they do the same, is effectively branded an asshole**