I don't exchange very many Christmas gifts, usually my wife and I buy a few tokens for each other, we exchange fun gifts with a fairly small group of others, and leave it at that. It takes a lot of pressure away - no racking brains trying to figure out what's appropriate for someone, no sense of us buying a gift card for them while they buy a gift card for us for the exact same amount, etc.
Fun gifts are, well, fun. If you don't like a fun gift it's not like a whole lot of money went into it. A lot of the time we exchange consumable gifts with people - it's great because there's no sense of wondering if it will fit with their decor, no concern about whether they'll want to keep it in their house permanently, if you don't like their gift you can throw the rest of it in the trash and they won't expect to see it next time they visit, and nobody ends up with a house full of stuff they don't really want any more but it's awkward to get rid of because it was a gift.
