How do you keep the holidays fair?

[timzagain]

Focus on the value on the item, not the price you paid for it! The whole point of finding bargains is to keep more of your money in your wallet! Set aside the savings you've earned through savvy gift shopping and use it to start next year's Christmas gift fund!

You also have to think about the precedent you're setting as well. You might have budgeted $30 for one child's gift, but discover that with sales, you might be able to buy $300 worth of merchandise for $30. If you go ahead and give a gift worth $300 this year, you're setting up that expectation for subsequent years, an expectation that could come back to bite you in the rear!

A few years ago, DH and I made an innocent price vs. value mistake with our own children that caused some bad feelings! We gave DD a pair of designer sunglasses that I got for less than a third of the normal price - at the normal price, I would not have been able to buy them for her. DSD (same age as DD) wanted and received expensive perfumes and other items that weren't available on sale. We spent more on DSD's gift that DD's but the perceived value of DD's gift was higher, so it looked as though we were splurging on one child and short-changing the other. It took a lot of explaining to convince DSD that the witch-stepmother wasn't trying to play favorites. I also had to explain to DD that she got the sunglasses only because I got a fantastic deal, and that it's not the kind of gift I would have been prepared to buy at full price.

They were both teenagers at the time - I can't imagine trying to explain that scenario to younger children.

 

[mom3sonstt]

My 3 boys are 17, 19 & 21. the last several years we have an amount per kid that we are shooting for. Once I get the "big stuff" out of the way I see where I am number wise - how much have I spent on each one of them, and how many packages will each one have. Then I start filling in. If I have almost reached my spending limit on one, but they have 5 packages fewer than the others then I will pick up some little items to make up the difference in numbers. If one kid has an unusually higher number of packages than the others then I will see if any of those items "go together" so I can wrap them together and lower their number of packages. I didn't used to be quite so anal about it...but my husband has a different way of "doing Christmas" than I did as a kid. When I was a kid we got all our stuff in a pile and tore through it. He looks under the tree and passes out an item to each of the kids and they all open one....then the next...then the next. So when you get to the end of the tree and only one kid has presents left the others notice. He does the same thing with the grandkids too (my husband has 2 older kids in addition to our 3 - between the 2 of them there are 6 grandkids) I have to do the same money and numbers with.


I love excel!!

 

[jacksmom]

I don't really focus on $ amount of gifts, but # of gifts! It seams like mine count them!

 

[brergnat]

We do a "everyone gets four gifts" thing in our house.

The four gifts are :

1. Something you want.

2. Something you need.

3. Something to wear.

4. Something to read.

That is fair. It's not about the $$ spent, it's about acknowledging that Christmas is not all about the material things and the presents...

Since there are four of us, it works out well that we give each OTHER the gifts. "Santa" brings the "something you want" gift.

 

[brymolmom]

While I don't spend $500 on one kid and $5 on the other...I honestly don't worry too much about fairness when it comes to Christmas gifts. Honestly each child should be grateful to be getting gifts, not worryign whether or not it's fair. And if they have a problem with it...well - there's a lesson to be learned right there.

When dd was 5 - she saw her cousin open up a doll...she was sure that her aunt would have given them the same gift...well, she went to open hers and it was something else - she did not think it was fair at all. And did not act appreciative of the nice gift that her aunt thought she would PREFER to the doll. Anyway, she spent quite a bit of time punished in her room that year...trying to learn how to appreciate a gift and not fuss about what she DIDN'T get. She did much better the following year.

I do like when my kids have about 5 - 7 things to open, but sometimes they will be very small or I'll pack something from the stocking to just let them have another gift to open if it doesn't seem like they have enough.

 

[mom3sonstt]

It's funny how different families have different ways of doing something. On my mom's side I had a girl cousin 2 years older than me. We had an aunt that lives in Seattle (we live in Illinois) - every year we would get the exact same gift from her. Her Sr. year she was joining the Navy after graduation and didn't need any gifts - only basic needs. So we both got some plain "granny panties" from our aunt.

On my dad's side of the family that grandma every year got us an outfit, a "fun" gift, and something from Avon. We could tell from the shape which was the Avon and the clothes, so we always went for the "other" package first.

One thing I am careful about doing is removing price tags. My mother never did. My Sr year I was taking....and loving...bookkeeping, so she bought me a printing calculator. Since she didn't take the tags off any of our gifts my brother and I ran tapes of both of our piles. They weren't even I don't remember now which was higher.

Instead of saving time by not taking the price tags off, now she saves time by re-using gift boxes. Unfortunately, she doesn't make sure the name tag from previous years is removed. So Christmas over there is almost like a grab bag. You never know if what you open is really yours, or just "your" box from the year before. When we pick up trash we always try to sneak a few of the boxes in the trash sack so she won't re-use them again the next year.

 

[mrodgers]

The value of the gift to children is not measured in the monetary sense.

My youngest has always valued her cheap Little Petshop figures as high as my oldest valued her Nintendo DS and MP3 player.

Then again, it seems strange to realize that the monetary value of all the Little Petshop stuff is indeed significantly higher by hundreds of dollars when all put into the same pile over the "expensive" electronics, hehe.