How fair are you in your gift giving?

[tinkerbellandpeterpan]

DH and I have no kids and don't exchange with each other since we are always traveling around at Christmas. My dad passed away this past year, but before that we never worried about an equal number of gifts for my parents. My dad was tougher to buy for and we always had a joint gift for them (like tickets to a show) and that usually went in his pile. This year it's just my mom. She did give me somewhat of a list to work from which helped and I coordinated with my brother to make sure things were covered.

My in laws live in Florida and they don't see what my mom gets or vice versa. They prefer gift cards (getting them to say that was their preference was like pulling teeth but it has made life so much easier). They aren't into clutter, don't need anything, don't want anything, and generally buy what they want throughout the year. They are lovely people, we enjoy the holidays with them, they just literally don't want stuff. We don't really balance the amount spent because I can get a lot of my mom's things on great sales so I can afford to give her more quantity. We usually split my in-laws' gift among 3 or so gift cards and I defer to my husband as to what he wants to spend for his parents. They are quite generous with us so whatever amount he is comfortable with is fine with me.

I shoot for an equal number of gifts for my brother's kids. I try to keep it to 3-4 for each. They are young (10 months and 5 years) so that's easy enough for now. They get tons around this time of year and my brother and sister in law are trying to stem the tide of stuff. Also, I know my mom gives them 5-6 presents each so I want to keep what we give them a little smaller/less quantity than what they get from Mimi. Defer to DH about what he wants to get for our nephew on his side (SIL sends an amazon wishlist for him so we work off that mostly). Those kids aren't opening presents together so we don't run the risk of comparing amounts or $ value thankfully.

 

[goofyernmost]

Since I retired I have set a per person total that I am willing or sometimes able to spend on them and I work hard at meeting that goal with every person in the family. My children and their spouses get the highest amount apiece followed by the grandkids and I am so careful never to vary from the focase amount that I set. Now all my grands are adults and have raised the amount just plainly because their requests are more expensive now but I give to all what I give to each one. The only variation to that has been because of inflations, but all the same value be that one gift or ten. Same value throughout.

 

[Mackenzie Click-Mickelson]

I'm sure my parents attempted to keep things as even as they could both in number and cost but with 3 years difference in age as my sister and I got older so did the costs there. I mean clothes for a 9th grader and a 6th grader don't normally cost right at the same amount. And time went on the type of gifts tend to change too. A portable disc player cost more than Lisa Frank stuff.

But my mom always had us go clothes shopping for new school year and a few of those times were strictly for Christmas, we got to pick normally though.

For adults you don't really need to try and keep it so close in costs nor number of gifts. People go though different time periods and sometimes one year have a reason to want something that ends up being more pricey (like maybe they are replacing or buying for the first time luggage or a big life even and they need something that other years they wouldn't). Like the OP wondering if 4 vs 5 gifts is bad form or spending $50 more on the person who gets 4 gifts means it's now equal but maybe not and if it wasn't then they could just buy another gift that equals the same dollar amount, etc. At some point you miss what exchanging gifts is even amount, not a tallying up justification game that that whole thing becomes. That isn't meant to be a knock at the OP but using theirs as an example. A gift is meant to convey you care but to me becomes something else entirely when you're trying to give someone something just so it "equals/evens out" You're too worried about perceptions than why you're even giving gifts. But that's my perspective on adults.

For parents with kids in a multiple siblings situation it's more understandable that parents are trying to find ways to work with this, adults should know better.

 

[Southernmiss]

For our adult kids, similar in number of packages to open and dollar amount spent.

This year, they're each receiving 4 or 5 boxes to open. Some with one item, some with several.

2 of our adult kids live a plane flight away. And they've requested shoes lol which are more expensive than several small items others have requested.

 

[goofyernmost]

I'm sure my parents attempted to keep things as even as they could both in number and cost but with 3 years difference in age as my sister and I got older so did the costs there. I mean clothes for a 9th grader and a 6th grader don't normally cost right at the same amount. And time went on the type of gifts tend to change too. A portable disc player cost more than Lisa Frank stuff.

But my mom always had us go clothes shopping for new school year and a few of those times were strictly for Christmas, we got to pick normally though.

For adults you don't really need to try and keep it so close in costs nor number of gifts. People go though different time periods and sometimes one year have a reason to want something that ends up being more pricey (like maybe they are replacing or buying for the first time luggage or a big life even and they need something that other years they wouldn't). Like the OP wondering if 4 vs 5 gifts is bad form or spending $50 more on the person who gets 4 gifts means it's now equal but maybe not and if it wasn't then they could just buy another gift that equals the same dollar amount, etc. At some point you miss what exchanging gifts is even amount, not a tallying up justification game that that whole thing becomes. That isn't meant to be a knock at the OP but using theirs as an example. A gift is meant to convey you care but to me becomes something else entirely when you're trying to give someone something just so it "equals/evens out" You're too worried about perceptions than why you're even giving gifts. But that's my perspective on adults.

For parents with kids in a multiple siblings situation it's more understandable that parents are trying to find ways to work with this, adults should know better.

That's ok for adults, but children do not relate to money, they related to physical numbers and not receiving things that a sibling got that they also wanted but didn't get. When my kids were pre-ten years old they were very close with very much the same interests. They were two years apart but after 4 years old they had a desire to have the same thing their sister got. My wife and I decided to eliminate long faces and disappointment so a large portion of their gifts were duplicate of the other ones. That is when it came to toys, the different things were mostly clothing or some special requests. We did make an attempt to find out what one liked that the other didn't. After awhile we got pretty good at guessing that stuff.

After 10 years old, it was a whole new game and independence reared its ugly head and taste changed. Once the teen years set in it was difficult to know what they would react negatively too and became far more complicated. It was awful tempting in those days to just give them $100 and tell them to go crazy with it. But we didn't, that might have been to much of a temptation.

 

[RangerPooh]

We have 4 kids and 2 "cousins" that we gift to. For our 4 kids we do our best to keep within a reasonable budget. Plus DH is known to go over budget. I think it's guilt that we both had growing up poor, to ensure our kids receive better than we did.

Honestly it's more ensuring that each gets a big gift that they need or want, within reason. Then there's the smaller gifts that will vary, one might get a few more items that cost less, and they don't complain. The bulk of their gifts come from DH and I, with my parents (grandparents) adding a gift or two for each. They do not receive anything from DHs family.

For the "cousins" I try to stay within a budget, quality bigger item and a few smaller items from their list or things that we've noticed that they'd like. Like our kids, what their mom provides is essentially it. Their dad is cheap. As they're our kids best friends, we want to ensure that they are not without.

 

[fla4fun]

I buy gifts for two people, my sister and BIL. I have a set holiday shopping budget and try to keep the dollar amount similar for each. Sometimes one or the other has an extra gift to open, but I try to keep the number of packages similar too. Sometimes I buy a major gift and an accessory for it and will wrap them separately or together, based on the gift count to even up the numbers.

Mom and Dad always tried to keep the dollar amount similar but didn’t worry about the package quantity as much. There were five years between my sister and myself, so they were buying very different gifts for the two of us for a lot of years.

 

[TiggerTrigger]

I try to spend about the same on each kid. Of course, I have one that's great at giving me a list of everything under the sun she might want and another who will give me next to nothing in terms of ideas. I know she just wants cash. At some point, I need to compare spending on both and see if I "owe" that kid anything

 

[soccerdad72]

Now that our boys are (mostly) grown (they're 25 and 20), we don't usually worry too much about number of presents or cost. We also buy a lot less stuff than we did when they were kids. They don't need much these days.

We do a gift exchange with my siblings and their kids, plus my parents. We have a dollar limit for that.

 

[princesscinderella]

With my three kids who are now teens I have given up trying to make it even. They need different things at different times. My youngest is getting the most this Christmas as she needs a laptop for school since she’s is in a video production and editing class and needs to be able to work on premiere pro, her iPad which is what is used by the school for everything else is not enough. My middle daughter is a senior so I’m not getting her as much because we don’t know what she needs yet based on what college she gets into and will be very expensive halfway through next year. I got her a Dyson hairdryer as she loves the one we have now and mentioned she would like one to take to college. My oldest son loves to cook so he asked for an immersion blender and I got him an aero garden to grow herbs and lettuce as an extra surprise. They all got concert tickets as their other big gift, although my youngest will go to both, where the middle and oldest will go to one, partly because she likes both artists and the other two don’t, they are Ariana Grande and My Chemical Romance so two very different genres. I also got some small stuff for them to open.

When they were younger they would always get what they asked for from Santa the price difference didn’t matter and over the years they evened themselves out just based on their needs and wants as they aged. Ex: one year my youngest wanted a giant pikachu stuffed animal while my middle daughter wanted one of the hoverboards. My son got a cell phone one year while the girls wanted AirPods as they were not old enough to have a cell phone by our house rules but had tablets. It’s never been an issue that it was perfectly equal because we have gotten what they wanted and as kids they weren’t tallying up the price.

 

[#1hoosierfan]

My boys are now 16 and 18. I have always tried to keep the number of gifts and the amount spent in the same range but have never gone so far as to count gifts or exact money spent on each.

 

[Darcy03231]

We've always spent approximately the same amount on each kid. When they were young (Santa years) we made sure they all had the same number of presents to open. Once they were older we didn't bother with the same number anymore, just the same amount spent.

 

[sam_gordon]

video production and editing class and needs to be able to work on premiere pro

Check and see if DaVinci Resolve will work instead of Premiere. Fully functional free version. Can always try it and get Premiere later if DaVinci doesn't work.

 

[Dug720]

I once got a check for $16.34 because that was how much more my sister's gifts came to than mine. We had the same number, but my dad wanted to make sure the $ amount was the same.

 

[disneychrista]

I always made sure that my daughters had the same number and usually same type of gifts. I never thought to worry about that one kids toy, jacket, game cost $5 more than the other.

 

[princesscinderella]

Check and see if DaVinci Resolve will work instead of Premiere. Fully functional free version. Can always try it and get Premiere later if DaVinci doesn't work.

Thanks she gets a subscription for Premiere with her school since she’s being taught on that software. It’s not added cost to us fortunately. She can stay in the lab and do the work at school but it just makes for long days for her so we are trying to giver her the ability to have some downtime between class and homework with her being able to do it from home. I think she also uses DaVinci because I think she has said it has some strength areas she likes more than adobe.

 

[Kathryn Merteuil]

I don't track it down to the penny or anything, but I try to spend about the same amount on my stepdaughters and their husband/boyfriend.

 

[jdb in AZ]

We just send $$$ online. Most of our family lives out of state, and it's just simpler for the parents to buy for their kids -- they get what they want and we don't have to pay shipping.

 

[TiggerTrigger]

I was reminded of this thread earlier today! My mom messaged me to say she's spent $14 more on everyone else and I need to come up with one more gift for myself.

 

[LuvOrlando]

My kids were identical spend for Christmas and usually roughly the same number even if one who wanted a big item got a few trinkets to be the same count. My go to for the balance was often fluffy socks, ski or snowboard socks, gloves, earmuffs, Burts Bees, handwarmers & that sort of stuff.

Niece and nephew are a big age difference so her 9 YO Hanukkah gifts are more than his little 3 YO gifts, although his Disney Cars items are a bit pricey compared to her generic art stuff. I'll probably start paying closer attention to even handedness next year when the little guy will be more aware. I don't want to seem to be playing favorites and hurt any feelings.