It all started so innocently with one small gift of homemade cookies that your neighbors reciprocated with a very fancy bottle of wine, which made you want to buy something even nicer the next year to thank them for that bottle of wine, which they returned with a gift certificate for a swanky restaurant in town.
Unfortunately, this will never go back to just gifting each other with homemade cookies, but you can give yourself some financial relief by giving the same gift you gave last year.