Who invented this christmas malarkey anyhow? It's a dumb idea!
That question is basically the same one I asked myself several years ago, and after a couple more years of sweating out obligitory gift giving, I finally said enough is enough. (Obligitory in the same sense you've described, I think -a desire to give a meaningful gift, falling short, and being held to a certain expectation or standard by some others and myself).
Now, we give to the children and charity, and that is it. My kids, nieces and nephews, and kids of friends. I may give a Christmas card, but no gifts to adults who are perfectly capable of buying what they want when they want it. The first year that we did this, we donated to charity in the name of the adult person(s) and gave them the "notice" along with a card. At the family gatherings, we told them about the charity, who was benefiting, how we came to learn of it and so on. My grandmother (an SF) has done that for years, donated blankets to the homeless in our names. Christmas is about giving, sharing time, love, space, etc...but it's not about giving things in excess, symbolic things or not. My husband is an ESFJ, and he seemed to think it was perfectly fine and acceptable. We haven't been uninvited to any family dinners since we started it a few years ago.
Also, we told our friends that we would be donating to charity that year in lieu of presents, so they need not buy for us, and that we looked forward to spending time with them. Some bought us presents anyway, and that was a little uncomfortable the first year. The second year, no one did presents, and I think we all felt better because we were all off the hook.
Good luck with getting into your solution, whatever that turns out to be.
BTW: Greetings all.