How many gifts do you give???

[beachwarmer]

I need all the expert advice from the all knowing people on this board....

How many gifts do you give your young children for their birthday?

My DD birthday is Christmas Day. We usually go to WDW for Christmas and I have the excuse of not packing a lot of Christmas/Birthday presents for my DD. We usually pick out some things there and do CRT and BBB for her birthday.

We are not going this year (Three weeks in London, England took away our vacation budget this year...and probably next too.) I have the Christmas/Santa gifts done, but now I am looking at the pile to wrap with birthday paper and there does not seem to be much there.

Do you give more presents to your kids for Christmas than their birthday? Am I overcompensating for the dreaded joint Christmas/Birthday gifts?

Any ideas would be appreciated.

 

[eeyorethegreat]

My daughter's (to b 9) birthday is this Friday. She is getting a locket to replace the one that she has which was not meant to wear every single day for as long as she has (there is a story as to why she wears a locket every day but it is sad so I'll skip it here) and she is getting a webkinz since her subscription is up this month. That's it. For Christmas two weeks later she is getting a tupperware tea set that I found on Ebay, a book (half.com) and a computer game also (half.com). We are got a computer for the 4 kids to share as the big gift. The computer though just a basic one was way more than we usually spend at Christmas so it is a pretty big deal. I think kids' expectations for how many gifts or how much is spent is based on their experience. If they know they usually get a whole pile of gifts and the parents spend hundreds of $$ on them individually (not a shared gift) then that is what they will expect. The year that we went to WDW at Christmas we told them well ahead that the trip was their gift they were more than happy with that and never asked for or expected anything else. I would say that if you daughter is used to being showered with gifts then that is what she will expect unless you tell her other wise. On the other hand if she just gets one or two gifts then she wouldn't be apt to expect more. Since her trips to WDW have been presented as a gift I would think a couple well thought out gifts would make her happy.

 

[brandylouwho]

We usually give one gift for birthdays. The kids get gifts from so many people that in the end they still get a ton of gifts. They get other things throughout the year. It isn't like this is the one item we'll buy her all year.

For Christmas they get x number of dollars spent on them from mom & dad, from the sibling, from Santa...so they get at least 3 gifts at home, sometimes more, depending on the price.

I do feel guilty though, as the eldest isn't having a birthday party this year--We will be at WDW the weekend before and after her birthday. We'll have cake on Christmas Day with the extended family for her.

Then again, I promised her that we can do whatever she wants the morning of Dec 17th...so I already know where I'll be--fantasyland & toontown. I think walking through Mickey & Minnie's houses may be my least favorite thing to do at WDW, but for my child's birthday I think I can suck it up and smile.

 

[beachwarmer]

Thanks for the ideas. She is an only child and grandchild so gets lots of gifts.

I will not worry any more about her getting cheated because her birthday is on Christmas Day.

 

[YellowMickeyPonchos]

I think it all depends on the year and the quality/value of the gifts. The year we bought a kitchen set, Zoe was so excited and overwhelmed with that and a couple sets of play food that we actually hid the other present we had for her. Last year we did small gifts, but a few more.

This year, since I knew times were going to be hard, I bought small things on clearance throughout the year. We used all of this year's Christmas gift money from my family to fly us home to see my mom - she had just gotten out of the hospital, so we will mark some of the gifts as being from Uncle and Aunt and Grandma. I think they'll each get about 5-7 small things to open. One from each adult, one from a sister, and one from Santa.