How many presents does Santa usually bring for your children?

[kinntj]

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 . . .

This is why we do 1 each too. In our house, Santa doesn't like greed. They can get greedy with us though.

 

[jensen]

We are a one gift household... they always get to pick two things... Santa will bring one and Mom & Dad will get the other...

This has caused problems for us, however. When I was growing up Santa always brought several gifts for each of us. That was also the case in my husband's home. But, we decided that our children would only get 1 gift from Santa. It never made sense to me... Santa stories typically only tell of one gift, don't they?

We always spend Christmas at my parent's home and since my DS8 was the first grandchild, it wasn't a problem at first. But, when my nieces and nephews were born, and my sisters decided that Santa was going to bring their kids several gifts... well, it broke my heart to have my son ask "why does Santa bring "sally" more gifts than me."

I couldn't ask my sisters to change the way they celebrate the holiday. So, we stopped spending Christmas at my parent's house.

 

[Deffenm]

One gift each and their stockings. The kids always get their best gift from "Daddy". When they stop believing in Stanta they will know that "Daddy" always gets them their #1 gift. They also know that Daddy does not work and stays at home with them and that mommy makes all of the money. So I get credit too.

 

[nikkistevej]

1 or 2 gifts- unwrapped and a stocking from Santa, and maybe 8-10 from Mom and Dad(why should Santa get all of the credit- LOL)

 

[design_mom]

Santa brings three gifts like the wisemen to each child. He also does stockings which are usually quite full....

Santa does the same at our house.

I like the way three gifts ties back to "the reason for the season," but we also had a practical reason for doing that. We live right down the street from my sister and often get together for Christmas morning. We agreed when our children were babies that we would both do the 3 gifts thing (we even buy the same "santa paper" to wrap them in).

That way, each family can spend what they're comfortable with but Santa treats each child the same. I would feel fine about explaining to my children why their cousins got more gifts from their mom and dad than we gave to our children... but would have trouble explaining why "Santa plays favorites."

When we were young, Santa brought everything -- but we didn't really get any gifts at all from anyone else (grandparents all deceased). Today, even Santa plus us can't compete with the doting grandparents!

 

[Misty89]

i have 2 DD's 17 & 9.
normally-
they get one or two gift from santa
and one or two gifts from Mom & Dad.

mom and dad gifts are usally clohtes, and santa is what they asked for.

this year, however, i am splitting mom/dad, santa & g-pa gift and getting DD9 a big expensive gift. (almost 3 times what i would normally spend)
so she will get the big gift, and a one santa gift.

 

[WantToGoNow]

My kids will each get 3 gifts from Santa -- I started it that way when they were babies. Ds7 doesn't believe this year, but I will still leave the gifts for the sake of dd - who will be 5 on Dec. 9. My kids know the meaning of Christmas so we don't play up Santa - most years they don't write lists, get pictures, etc. I think that's why ds came to know the truth at an early age.

These 3 gifts will be the 3 items that they seem to want the most. The only thing ds7 has asked for is the Bakugan arena - he will be getting that, an MP3 player and one larger item still to be determined. The only thing that dd has mentioned wanting is the Ponyville Carnival set - she will get that and 2 other items. Dd24 wants a Wii so she will get that and one game - she can pick up more after Christmas.

The rest of their gifts - 6 or 7 each will be from the family (mom, dad and sister) - we don't even put a from name on the gifts. They will then get gifts from Grandma/Grandpa and one other from the family gift exchange.

 

[*KeepMovingForward*]

We don't have a rule on the number of presents. If I had to guesstimate, I'd say my kids get 30+ gifts each. As they get older though, the number of gifts do decrease because instead of $20 and $30 gifts, they now ask for thinks like Iphones, laptops, game consoles, flat panel tv's, etc.

 

[aimeeg]

I posted before but I wanted to add something else. Some of the posts are kind of making me sad. I am 1000% in favor of keeping the magic of Santa alive in our house. I am one the still believes in Santa. Maybe not in the storybook way but the belief of giving with an open and happy heart. I cherish how my girls believe in Santa. The magic and sparkle in their eye is priceless!!! I am a Christian and I was raised in a Christian home. I think it is so possible to enjoy both aspects of the holiday- commercial and religious.

 

[almburr]

they usually get a few from Santa, then the family gets a gift from Santa (game system, movies etc) stocking stuff is from Santa.

We also have have a house elf gift that they get on christmas eve, it will be on the table when we get home from Christmas eve mass. They love it

We also make sure that there is an equal amount of gifts. Its is hard here we have DD6 b-day on the 11th ds3 b-day on the 13th and DH b-day on the 27th. three other kids complain that DD and DS always get more.

 

[tlh0726]

Each person in our family (dh, me, ds16, dd4, ds2) is responsible for getting each of the others a gift $25 or under. These gifts we open together xmas eve. We set a dollar limit for santa gifts. If one gift takes the entire amount then that is what you get one gift. Santa gifts are the only gifts under the tree xmas morning. After these are opened and everyone is settled down, we will bring out the gifts from out of town relatives. We do one relative at a time and after we are done opening the gifts from that person, we make a phone call to that relative and each of us take our turn thanking them. When that is done, we then do the next relative and repeat until all present are opened. We do this so the kids realize who gave them what and it does not turn into a blur gifts with no clue as to who,what, or where. The relative's look forward to our calls, they even start calling between themselves trying to figure out in what order we are opening. Last year the last person that was called was the house they are spending xmas at this year. It seems the wrapping paper and bows get brighter and fancier each year, I guess their way of making the kids choose to open theirs first.

 

[eeyoreland]

Wow, there are a lot of good ideas here. I wish I would have known some of these things 14 years ago. DD is 14 and how after all these years do you change things? Yes, we go slightly overboard. But back to the original question, we usually do 3-5 gifts from Santa. It's become less the older she's gotten because there are less gifts. What about stocking stuffers? I'm looking for some ideas for stuffers for DD14 and also DH.

 

[h518may]

I have two kids and they will both get 4-5 gifts total this year. One bigger gift is from Santa plus stocking stuffers.

I like starting off with pajamas Christmas Eve for both. Then Santa comes during the night and leaves presents in the living room ready to be prayed with. All of the other presents are under the tree wrapped in the office. The kids can play with Santa gift and get into their stocking first thing in the morning, but wrapped presents wait until after breakfast and maybe for grandparents to show up. Then we take our time opening presents from everyone else. DH's family likes to open presents Christmas Eve, but since DH works 3-11 that only works out if he can get the day off. And this year I know he will be working Christmas Eve. Not sure when we will open gifts with them. They are always invited to our place for Christmas morning, but they like us to come to them.

 

[leebee]

On christmas eve DH and I give DD15 an ornament; we have every year, and it's always something to commemorate a big experience from the year (cable car for her 1st christmas as she was born in SF, a pooh book ornament the year she learned to read, a sugar plum fairy the first year she danced in Nutcracker, etc.). On christmas morning Santa brings one, unwrapped gift for DD and fills the stockings. Stocking stuff is usually wrapped (in special paper) so it takes longer to open the stocking. (this I got from my mom- there were 4 kids and only one mom, and we were allowed to open the stockings Santa left on the foot of our bed so she could sleep a little longer, and wrapped stuff let her sleep even longer!) Stocking stuffers are often things like shampoo, toothpaste (NOT the boring everyday kind), lip gloss, little puzzles, etc. DH and I give all the rest of DD's presents to her, and there are quite a few, but very few presents from relatives (maybe three or four total). We don't buy expensive electronics, like Wii, playstations, etc.; they are just too expensive for us. DD gets clothes, videos, gift cards ($25, usually books or clothes), stuff like that. DH and I also get several things for each other, but it's always something we need- books, socks, underwear, jammies, kitchen stuff, tools, etc.

 

[blondemom]

I also grew up believing that all the gifts come from Santa. That's how I raised my kids. I love the magic it creates. I love seeing their faces first thing in the morning when they see the presents at the bottom of the tree. We tend to buy a lot as well. It's our one time of year to really go crazy, and we do.

 

[aimeeg]

So, I talked to my DH last night and I told him I had been thinking about limiting the number of gifts Santa brings. I could not even plead my whole case before my (Jewish) husband said NO!! LOL He laughed and said No, Santa brings everything. Let's enjoy it why it lasts.

 

[asoko]

I just had a conversation with some of my friends about this. One grew up with all the presents unwrapped and from Santa. She was in amazement that there were other ways of doing it. It was quite funny. Another friend's child is allowed to visit one Santa and give 2 gift ideas she really wants, then gets those for Christmas. I grew up with 2 Santa presents and a stocking (my dad still does stockings for the whole family - all 15 of us), a few from Mom & Dad and from my siblings. I never thought about it, I've just done it the same for the 4 Christmases I've had kids. I never paid attention to the number of presents given, I usually get them on sale throughout the year and buy too many. I've been known to call up my brothers (one is a college student the other is a single dad whose kids are older than mine) and ask if they bought presents, when they say no I offer to wrap an extra and have them give those presents to my kids.

After seeing all these ideas, I'm thinking of having more order and reasons for the gift giving. My kids are getting to the age where they are becoming aware of what Christmas is. My DS was so excited last year when our priest said Christmas was 7 days long. I had to break the news that it wasn't 7 days of getting gifts.

 

[DISNEYNUTS]

we have always gone over board at Christmas, although we do not go overboard the rest of the year. But our Kids are older now 14, 12, and 10 so they have just as much fun giving now. We do much with charity esp. at christmas they love to pick out and wrap gifts for those less fortunate then they have been.

 

[CandCMommy]

Santa brings all of the gifts to our house and yes, they are all wrapped unless there is something of an unsual shape/size such as a bike. This is how both DH and I were raised and we plan to continue that tradition.

Last year the boys got entirely tooooo many toys so this year we are trying to scale back somewhat. I love the way all the gifts look under the tree so I'm having a hard time, but will defnintely try.

 

[Worfiedoodles]

My ds10 just informed me there is not a single thing he wants that's under $20. His number of presents has just been radically reduced!