In this season of giving, who else do you give to?

[2littleprincesses]

Just thinking I am missing someone--
Who do you give to beyond family, child's teachers, child's activity teacher (dance, music lessons, etc)?

 

[java]

You are going to make me write it down so I won't forget either

The ones you mentioned- although I don't give the TaeKwonDo instructor a holiday gift my tuition is my gift.

In addtion

Bus Driver - we all give in $5 (there are 12 of us at the bus stop so it makes a nice gift)

CCD teachers

Recycle Guy

Hairdresser

Sometimes Mail lady- sometimes not this year she is on for a gift. (good mail year)

We used to give our lawn guy- but we don't use him anymore we cut ourselves.

And I usually have a couple extra generic "forgot people" gifts lying around when my child says I want to give the Librarian a gift.
I'm sure there are more but those are the top of my head ones. And honestly I think you should only gift those that you want to gift.

 

[Marionnette]

City Team Ministries (the local food pantry)

Penn State Cancer for the Kids drive

Catholic charities

Salvation Army angel tree

The kids are in college so there are no teacher gifts. I usually give the mailman a Wawa gift card. The newspaper delivery guy should be glad that we haven't canceled yet. He does a lousy job. No tip for him.

 

[olwyngdh]

My Mom started a tradition after my Dad died of taking money she would have spent on him and buying a gift for someone on an Angel Tree. I now do it in memory of both of them.

 

[It'sOffToDisneyWeGo]

Besides all of the ones already mentioned by PP, we give to some of our neighbors.

 

[Darcy03231]

My parents
DH's mother
DH's sister
Our four children
Our 5 nieces and 1 nephew
DH's office manager
My boss
2 of my co-workers (something small @ $5)

We also support several charities throughout the year and more heavily at Christmas. I buy quite a bit for Toys for Tots, and make donations to the state Food Bank as well as my local soup kitchen/shelter, the Humane Society, the local battered women's shelter and the local veteran's home.

 

[cnj]

Besides ourselves and kids:
Both our siblings
2 nieces
2 nephews
3 parents and all of their spouses
Grandmother
Gardener
Housekeeper
Teachers
Front office ladies
Piano teacher
Art teacher
Mail lady
10 friends
Dog groomer
One special friend and her 3 children
Hair dresser
2 neighbors

We also adopt a family off of the giving tree and will be buying gift cards to grocery store and gas cards as well as toys for the family.


On Black Friday, I bought toys for Toys for Tots and will be dropping off a box of toys soon.


This year I am doing something new and took inspiration from the lady who did the random acts of kindness on her birthday. As a countdown to Christmas, everyday, I am doing one random act of kindness. So far, I have brought a platter of homemade cookies to the senior center, left a gift card in one of my favorite books at the book store, left flowers for friends on doorsteps, and today I surprised a friend by watching her kid for her. It has been fun!

 

[happydisneyfamily]

Besides family and friends, we give to:

Mail person
Garbage truck driver
Homeless shelter
Angel tree and toys for tots
Teachers
Church
Hairdresser
Any other of my kids coaches or instructors
Yard person

That's all I can think of right now

 

[Handbag Lady]

My friend's niece has a rare childhood cancer. It was discovered on Christmas 2010. So, this year, instead of donating here and there, we're just giving our entire donating budget to their family. The child needs care at a specialist in NY and they've asked for donations.

However, I can still donate time so I've volunteered to be a shopper for the family we're sponsoring at work.

 

[akcire]

In addition to shopping for my family.

I am shopping for the families staying at the Ronald McDonald House. The house already has a good supply of toys that are donated throughout the year. Once we have a better idea of who will be staying at the house over Christmas I am going to "shop the storage area" then wrap those items. Anything more that needs to be purchased I will go out and buy with my funds.

I used to cook on holidays, but we found a local chef to volunteer this year. This is a much better use of my and his talents. I have a hard time cooking for 20 different people with different tastes at one meal.

 

[lovetheduck]

We give a holiday tip (cash) to:
Garbage man
Recycling man
Mailman
Housekeeper
Hairdresser
Newspaper delivery
Personal Trainer
Anyone I have hired to personally teach my kids. For us this is the violin teacher, tutor, and horse trainer. I do not tip the person who teaches the gymnastics class or the tennis instructor. I differentiate because in a group setting my child is getting much less instruction than the one on one lessons and the group classes do not always have the same teachers every week. I will bring a tray of holiday cookies to the office at the tennis center and gymnastics gym so that all the instructors can share.

 

[disneychrista]

Call us cheap but other than our immediate family we don't give to anyone.

 

[Jedana]

DS's homeroom teacher (gift basket w/nice chocolates, microwave popcorn, and a dvd of Christmas Story).

The Children's Home that our church sponsers: several board games, a couple of dvds, books. I'm hoping to be able to go get a few more things for them, for the teens, since they seem to get the short end of the stick around the holidays. (People tend to buy for the young kids, and forget that teenagers still like presents too!)

DH is making leather necksliders for his Cub Wolf Den, and I am making candies for the boys and their families; I'm also making cookies for the Pack meeting for everyone.

The Wolf Den is also handing out Christmas cards at the nursing home on Tuesday, when we go caroling there. We're also bringing a large platter of homemade cookies for the staff and any residents that can have them. One of our DL's mom was there until this past July (she passed away), and this is going to be hard on him.

We did a "shoebox" for the church's drive last month--candy, a car building kit, some school supplies, couple of card games.

Not sure what to buy for these yet:
DS's resource teachers (p.e., music, computer, library)
Trash men
Mailman
Recycling guys
FedEx driver who we see at least 3x a month, (DH's meds are mail ordered)

 

[QVCshopper]

Let's see...

Sponsor a child
Angel tree
Toys for tots
Library
Local food shelter
Bus drivers x3
Speech and OT helpers x3
Teachers x2

I think that's about it... Maybe the mail lady. She's sweet.

Edit: forgot the orthodontist (gift card) and staff (cookies) because he's doing my DD's back for free.

 

[rentayenta]

DH's crew- he's a
DS's teacher. Once they hit Jr High we nix gifts.
Mail carrier
DS's bus driver
milk man
My bff's kids
my co-workers, just something small. This year I got Mickey chocolate bars when we were in Disneyland
3 stars off the angel tree at work
the kids bffs
middle DD's dance teacher

 

[Colleen27]

We keep our giving small - just our children, the children in the extended family, our parents, and a couple of holiday-oriented charities. We don't give gifts to people we only interact with in their professional capacity.

 

[abcboys]

We keep our giving small - just our children, the children in the extended family, our parents, and a couple of holiday-oriented charities. We don't give gifts to people we only interact with in their professional capacity.

This! I have never given a christmas present to our mailman or anyone like that. Gotta draw the line somewhere.

 

[bearloch]

Ive never given a gift to anyone else besides family and friends and teachers before! at last hair cut before christmas I usually just give a bigger tip ( maybe 5 bucks) When I was pg and high risk i saw my ob 1 a wk and was decorating cookies for something to do I did give him a basket of cookies and christmas card ( and have every year since). also did send in popcorn tin to ped office and to specials teachers just pop-corn and a varity of pop. But we live in a apartment now am I supposed to buy for office and maintance staff here?? I was thinking a tip for paper ( only get Sundays and bought yr in advance) so how much? DD is in middle school so Iwas jst doing big pop-corn and drinks for All staff at school.

oh i usually donate to animal shelter and will try to donate to toys for tots!

 

[Disneylush]

As a newspaper carrier home I can tell you anything is appreciated. We get .05 a paper that we deliver so where we really make money is in tips.

 

[Callymum]

All the usual family and friends plus-

Postman
2 Concierges.
Cleaning lady
Cpl of Old people I know. 