How many presents does Santa usually bring for your children?

[Tiggerlovinggrandma]

In one of my posts recently I had asked about wrapping stocking stuffers. Someone wrote in that their kids get only one present from Santa and the rest come from family and friends. It got me wondering again. Just how many presents does Santa leave each child and/or adult at your house. We usually do more then one. How about you?

 

[AwaitingMagic]

Santa leaves one big gift that is unwrapped (sometimes they are individual gifts - last year the wii was their Santa gift) and their stockings (which also have things unwrapped).

 

[pooh4evr]

in our family Santa leaves a few things, and stuff in their stockings- everything is wrapped in Santa paper (Emm's is green, Alli Blue Kate red) and on Dec 9 th Saint Nick comes to get their lists and usually leaves them something small in their stockings. They also get a couple of Santa things at my moms house as do I

 

[dancin'girl]

My budget is $100 for each child, which includes Santa's gifts and a gift or two from mom and dad.
I voted for 4-5, but it's really just whatever items I buy that fit into the budget.

 

[pigget74]

My kids are only allowed to ask Santa for 3 things. They know that they will get more from us. Also, only one big gift can be asked for--if it is really big then that is it. When DS asked for a video Ipod that was it. My 3 year old is asking for Dora, Hanny Manny toolbox, and Ming Ming. He understands that he can only ask for 3 things.

 

[3goofyboys]

My kids only get 5 gifts total plus a stocking. They each get 1 gift from Santa, three from us because the wisemen brought 3 gifts, and one from their brother.
Now, they get about a million gifts from grandparents, aunts and uncles so they get more than their fair share, but at home at least, we really try to make Christmas more about the spirit of the season and less about the gifts.

 

[mamacatnv]

Santa brings 1-2 wrapped, never the "big" thing of the year, Santa does not get all the glory stockings come from Mom, Dad and Santa conveniently after DD realized that I, not Santa was buying cat toys for the cats stockings.

 

[kydisneyfans]

We are cutting back this year. Last year the kid had 62 wrapped gifts once all was done. most of it was my wife buying things that I did not know about, and me buying things that she did not know about. There were lots of individual action figures, etc, nothing big.

This year he is getting the Wii and we bought a couple of decent sized Lego sets. A few DVDs and a few Wii games will max things out this year. He will probably see 12-15 gifts under the tree.

 

[rt2dz]

I’ve never counted. It can vary from year to year. Santa never wraps anything, BTW. With all those people to bring things for, how ever would he have the time? Presents from friends and family are wrapped. Anyhow…

My in-laws are getting the kids a wii system. Just the system. Santa is bringing all the accessories, extra remotes, games, etc. for the family. He will then also stuff the stockings and give each kid one biggish gift (not necessarily expensive). DS#1 gift is undetermined at this time. DS#2 is getting a scooter. DS#3 is getting Mickey Mouse Speedway. Smaller items will be wrapped and under the tree from us.

 

[december]

My kids get 3 gifts from Santa, plus small things in the stocking. We do it for religious reasons, but the motivation for beginning it was that when ds11 was little we didn't have the money for much. This year ds11 is getting a new ps2, a set of 3 ps2 harry potter games, and a football ps2 game. dd9 is getting a laptop (one of the cheap ones from Walmart's Sat. sale a few weeks ago), 3 Singstar ps2 games, and a disney ps2 game. Their stockings will each include a new memory card for the ps2, some candy, and some small gifts (I already have some Ole Miss notepads and a Star Wars yoyo for him-planning to get some tinkerbelle or hannah montana stuff for her).

Then they'll get 3 things from us, and one from each other. Add in gifts from the rest of the family, and they still get way too much.

 

[mom2princessj]

I’ve never counted. It can vary from year to year. Santa never wraps anything, BTW. With all those people to bring things for, how every would he have the time? Presents from friends and family are wrapped.

those are my thoughts too!
I didn't vote because it's different every year. Some years they get ALOT...more than they should. And this year we are TRYING not to buy as much since we are going to Disney and they'll be getting things there too. We have such a big family and they usually get tons from them too that it sometimes can be overwhelming...thus the scaling back on gifts this year. Dh says we'll wait to see what everyone gets them (we celebrate christmas it seems the whole month of December with many family parties leading up to Christmas) and then go out last minute and get them other things if there are things we feel like we want to get beyond what is given. So far, we've gotten ds imaginext pirate ship, little green army men, and a batman helicopter. DD has an American Girl Kit doll and some accessories. Stockings we usually dont' wrap and just do underwear, candy, and small toy items.

 

[nessz79]

Santa brings 1-2 wrapped, never the "big" thing of the year, Santa does not get all the glory stockings come from Mom, Dad and Santa conveniently after DD realized that I, not Santa was buying cat toys for the cats stockings.

I ditto Santa not getting all the glory!

We're buying the Wii next year, and I want me and DH to get the credit for it!

Santa usually brings 2-3 gifts for each kid, plus stockings. However, with the Wii being so expensive, he'll likely only bring 1 present per child plus stockings.

With the grandparents, aunts, etc. they will have plenty, though.

 

[PrincessTiffany]

Oh, Santa can only bring each of our children one special gift a year. How on earth could Santa and his elves make multiple toys for all the little children of the world . . .

 

[emh1129]

Santa leaves 2 things per child & those things are not wrapped. All of the gifts from Mom & Dad are wrapped.

 

[emma'smom]

My girls can ask Santa for three gifts.. They usually get these and then a few "extras" which are things they have been thinking of putting on their lists.

Stocking stuffers are usually things like mittens, packages of cocoa, chapstick...stockings are just little things....and some fruit and candy.

Last year we went completely out of control on the gift buying.....this year, with the economy and the realization that it was just too much, we're scaling way back.

Luckily, most of the things my girls are asking for are somewhat reasonable in cost (still not things I would just buy on a random Tuesday...but each thing is in the 20.00-30.00 range). Also, they are still young enough (3 and 6) that I can "plant" some ideas in their heads based on things I've already picked up. They really don't have a sense of the value/cost of things yet. To them, a Care Bear and a Wii are about equal in "wow" factor.

Also, we wrap a few gifts from mom and dad (and from each girl to the other). So far these include a magnet animal puzzle, an Egyptian puzzle and school spirit wear that I ordered for them last week. We'll add a few things to this list as the sales start in December.

 

[disykat]

Santa leaves one gift and fills the stockings. Those are in the family room. The rest of the stuff is in the living room under the tree.

This is similar to the way I grew up. Santa was just sort of a bonus to the family gift giving, not the whole ball of wax. I think people tend to carry on the traditions they grew up with.

 

[ScotsMinnie]

In our house Santa leaves pretty much all the presents. We give the girls a special present from us. I htought this was pretty much the norm but it seems to be the other way round.

We go a bit OTT with presents to be honest. But I do love Christmas!

 

[zoemurr]

In our house Santa leaves pretty much all the presents. We give the girls a special present from us. I htought this was pretty much the norm but it seems to be the other way round.

We go a bit OTT with presents to be honest. But I do love Christmas!

everything is from Santa.. and it's all wrapped except for one big thing.. not usually the best gift though.

If I had to do it again I would like some of the credit.
DD is 9 and last year after she opened all her gifts she looked at me and said, "Thank you Mommy!" That's when I knew Santa was gone.

 

[jaycns]

In our home, Santa brings each person three gifts. If three gifts were enough for baby Jesus, it's enough for them too. That's not a judgement of how anybody else does it, it's simply how we have always explained the number of Christmas gifts under our tree Chrismas tree to our kids. Gifts from Santa are the only ones we open on Christmas morning. He also fills our stockings with candy and small gifts.

All of the other gifts our family exchanges are opened on Christmas Eve. Our pets buy the kids one gift to share (usually a board game or a Lego set they all have interest in). Mom and Dad buy each child a gift (usually a combination gift of a toy/book/pajamas to wear to bed that night). Our children buy gifts for each other. They save up their own money to do this, so we don't limit them. The younger they are, the more cash we end up having to pitch in to help them...but in the case of us having to help, we only contribute up to about $10 per sibling. We want them to focus on the giving aspect, so we make a big deal about going out and searching for gifts with each of them that are just perfect for the others.

St. Nick does stop by on December 9th to pick up our Christmas lists (and get 'reports' from the Christmas reindeer *we have reindeer instead of elves on a shlef* on how the boys are doing naughty/nice wise). St. Nick (aka Santa) leaves each child with $20 and a favorite candy or other edible 'Christmasy' treat. We spend that money together on a family project for someone in need. We have adopted a family and purchased Christmas dinner for them. We have picked up a star from a tree at Walmart. Another year we bought toys for the Toys for Tots drive. We have done the Operation Christmas Shoebox thing. We give the kids a list and they pick which one we should work on as a family.

Lastly, the three Magi stop by on the eve of Jan. 6 for Epiphany. They pick up a small budle of straw that we leave out for their camels and drop off a small religious gift for each child. Things like a Veggie Tales movie, a Bible coloring book, a prayer journal, etc. Although we take down our Christmas tree on New Year's Eve (usually) we leave out our nativity until the wiseman have come to visit us.

Sorry it took me so long to explain how we do gifts in our family...but we have lots of tradtion behind each gift that is given.

Hope that my ramblings somehow answered your question.

 

[tzolkin]

When I was a kid our presents were from Santa. I assumed this was the norm (until I discussed it with DH) and most other people I know still do this.

Our kids get one present each (plus the contents of their stockings) from Santa. There are two reasons for this. We always participate in providing gifts for local families. We didn't want our children to wonder why we needed to buy presents for other children since Santa would just bring them a bunch of gifts. Also, like others have mentioned, my DH didn't want Santa to "have all the glory". The first year he asked what our oldest was getting from us. I hadn't thought about it, since I just thought all the gifts would be put out together. Then he said, "well it better be cooler than whatever Santa is bringing".

Oh, and everything is wrapped. The Santa gifts and stocking stuffers are in one type of paper. My oldest is fairly oblivious to things like that, but my middle child notices and remembers every detail.