Random Question about # of kids and gifts

[labdogs42]

As I was working on my holiday shopping list today, this situation occurred to me. I have an only child. In my DH's family there are 7 children (niece, nephew, and 2nd cousins) that we buy gifts for. They are from three families. So, I buy 7 gifts and my kid receives 3. It doesn't matter to me, he certainly gets enough gifts over the holidays, but it does sometimes irk me that I shell out all that money for gifts for all these kids! Technically if each KID bought each other kid a gift it would be equal, but since they essentially give as a family, it doesn't work out that way. Maybe I should suggest starting a kid pollyanna so we give and get one gift. How does your family handle gifts among cousins (in this case, under 18 years old)?

 

[carebee21]

Maybe you could give the kids a gift to share for Christmas. Like a game they can all play or art supplies? It won't work for birthdays, but it might help with Christmas. Personally, I buy stuff all year round on clearance, so even when I'm buying for family with two to three kids and they only buy my son one thing, I feel it's probably even.

 

[allison443]

As I was working on my holiday shopping list today, this situation occurred to me. I have an only child. In my DH's family there are 7 children (niece, nephew, and 2nd cousins) that we buy gifts for. They are from three families. So, I buy 7 gifts and my kid receives 3. It doesn't matter to me, he certainly gets enough gifts over the holidays, but it does sometimes irk me that I shell out all that money for gifts for all these kids! Technically if each KID bought each other kid a gift it would be equal, but since they essentially give as a family, it doesn't work out that way. Maybe I should suggest starting a kid pollyanna so we give and get one gift. How does your family handle gifts among cousins (in this case, under 18 years old)?

Okay, you confused me because you say it doesn't matter to you, yet it irks you to shell out money for these kids (your relatives)?

From what I understand, there are eight kids in your son's generation, spread among four families, and each family gives a gift to each child. So you realize each kid receives three gifts, right, not just your son? If a family has two kids, they are buying for six kids instead of the seven you buy for. If a family has three kids, they are only buying five gifts, instead of the seven you buy.
I mean, are you looking at it like you spent $100 and your son only received gifts worth $50?


If it bothers you, then maybe you could cut down the amount you spend on each gift. Gifts don't have to be expensive to be appreciated.

 

[QVCshopper]

For my DH's cousin's kids, we do a pollyanna. It makes everything easier, but honestly I wouldn't mind cutting it out either. I did manage to get it reduced to $10/gift.

 

[pyrxtc]

Each kid gets the same number of gifts, some families just get more for their kids because they have more. When/If you have more kids, they will each get a gift also from everyone.

BTW, you buy them gifts because you want to right ? Nobody says you have to. I have 4 kids and all of my siblings get them something. Up until this year, not one of them had kids so I didn't have to buy any. Soon, my kids will be out of the house and I will still be buying baby gifts for my nieces and nephews. I look forward to that day. I buy my nephew things for no reason all the time.

 

[bethy]

I agree with the previous posters. Also, it's not like people have more kids just so there can be more total gifts under the tree at Christmas.

That said, having a gift exchange for the kids does make sense just to cut back on money and stress for everyone. Or you could do what our family does and just buy gifts for the kids but not the adults.

 

[StephMK]

Can you just do family gifts for the other kids too then? I feel bad that my DB has 2 & I have 3 so I also try to spend more on his 2 so it "evens" up.

 

[suzcruz]

we have ten cousins, at thanksgiving, we draw names out of a hat, if you have one kid, you draw one name, 2 kids 2 names, etc. This works well for us and as we don't give birthday or other gifts, we have a high $ limit. The little kid might get 4 cheaper gifts while the teen might get one gift card for the same amount of $ but everyone is happy & it's fair (we usually ask the moms what they want).

for nonfamily, I have the same problem you do. I enjoy buying gifts for special friends, and will continue to do so, but it does irk me that I spend at least 50% more every time. I know some people set a dollar limit per person per gift, but after so many years, you think some people would realize, "Hey X must have spent $100 while I spent $25." Of course some of these people are so generous to my daughter in monetary and nonmonetary ways throughout the year that it does not matter but it still can be annoying!

 

[labdogs42]

we have ten cousins, at thanksgiving, we draw names out of a hat, if you have one kid, you draw one name, 2 kids 2 names, etc. This works well for us and as we don't give birthday or other gifts, we have a high $ limit. The little kid might get 4 cheaper gifts while the teen might get one gift card for the same amount of $ but everyone is happy & it's fair (we usually ask the moms what they want).

for nonfamily, I have the same problem you do. I enjoy buying gifts for special friends, and will continue to do so, but it does irk me that I spend at least 50% more every time. I know some people set a dollar limit per person per gift, but after so many years, you think some people would realize, "Hey X must have spent $100 while I spent $25." Of course some of these people are so generous to my daughter in monetary and nonmonetary ways throughout the year that it does not matter but it still can be annoying!

Thank you. You understood what I was saying. I kind of wish we could do the pollyanna thing, but I'm not sure they'd go for that. I like that idea a lot. Especially now that there are so many kids. Even at $25 a kid, that's $175 right there when I buy for all seven kids. If pulled a name and we made the limit $50, I'd be saving a ton! And I could get that one kid a nicer gift. I'll have to think about how to approach this.

 

[wtrmlnlabs]

I agree with the group toy thing. I don't really have this problem, but I also shop all year and get great deals on stuff for the kids for Christmas. If I were you and the whole Pollyanna thing didn't go, I'd do a nice game for each family's set of kids... board games, video games, I know my kids are just as happy to get a game to share (they're going to play it together anyway!) as anything else.

good luck

 

[ssawka]

I totally understand what OP is saying. DW and I only have DD, while on my side of the family there are 10 nieces and nephews and on DW side there are 8 nieces and nephews. We used to spen about $20 a piece on them, so we were spending close to $400 on Christmas gifts just for nieces and nephew. Well, one year my siblings were having tougher financial times so they decided not to exchange gifts. Well, that was the best thing for us as it cut our Christmas budget significantly.

 

[aprilgail2]

I have one kid and my friend has two--she insists on buying my daughter TWO gifts, one from each kid. I think that is insane and have asked her to stop doing that! My feeling is the last thing I need in my house is more toys LOL...so I would prefer that if they think they need to give double the gifts just buy a slightly bigger gift then for my daughter rather than 2 seperate gifts but honestly I don't feel they should even do that.

 

[Marionnette]

As I was working on my holiday shopping list today, this situation occurred to me. I have an only child. In my DH's family there are 7 children (niece, nephew, and 2nd cousins) that we buy gifts for. They are from three families. So, I buy 7 gifts and my kid receives 3. It doesn't matter to me, he certainly gets enough gifts over the holidays, but it does sometimes irk me that I shell out all that money for gifts for all these kids! Technically if each KID bought each other kid a gift it would be equal, but since they essentially give as a family, it doesn't work out that way. Maybe I should suggest starting a kid pollyanna so we give and get one gift. How does your family handle gifts among cousins (in this case, under 18 years old)?

I look at it like this. I love each of my neices and nephews as individuals. And as such I buy them a gift based on that fact. I really dislike the mentality that arises during the holidays that gift giving includes a tally sheet. And I prefer to give gifts when my heart directs me to do so. You say that it doesnt matter to you but yet you say that it sometimes irks you that your buying so many gifts. I think that it does bother you on some level. The kids pollyanna might be a good solution for your family. Im sure that the gift buyers in your family might be relieved to shop for fewer presents this year. And the children might actually enjoy it. If it doesnt go over well then you can return to buying individual gifts in the future but place a dollar limit per family. Or buying family gifts as previous posters have suggested.

 

[MinnieForMe]

Hi:
This is what I do. I have three children and my brothers each have one or two. I let my SIL's tell me what they want to spend. It is $20.00 a child this year. Anyway, I will spent $60.00 per family because I feel it's the fair way to do it as I have more children. So, my two nieces will end up with a $30.00 gift and my niece that is an only will get a $60.00 gift. I don't know if it's right but it's fair to me.

 

[angierae]

Back when there were a lot of cousins around we had the cousins draw names at Thanksgiving, and they buy for each other. We decided we'd rather our kids have 1 $30-40 gift than a bunch of $15 gifts (because none of us could afford to buy $30-40 gifts for all those kids)

Maybe you could sell it to your family like that? That the kids wouldn't get so much stuff and might get a better gift that would get used more?

 

[luvmy3]

In our family every adult (aunts and uncles) buys for 1 child, even if you have 10 of your own kids, or none. We also put a maximum $ amount on the gift so one niece or nephew isn't getting an ipod and another is getting a board game. We started this because each family was buying presents for all the kids, and with over 15 it was very expensive and the kids didn't need all that stuff.

 

[StacyMarie]

Draw names or draw "families". Each family only buys one gift for another family. I refuse to buy gifts for all my nieces and nephews. Whey my girls were younger the "present count" was what counted and it seemed that a few members of my family did not buy gifts for all the nieces and nephews and a few members of my family would buy gifts for all the nieces and nephews. My girls began to notice that they would not have as many gifts as some of their other cousins because those cousins with the extra gifts were the families that did not buy gifts for all. Once that started happening, we took a vote about buying for all the nieces and nephews and if everybody was not going to participate then nobody was going to do it.

Now I just do a family gift for each of my sisters and their families and I do not spend a lot of money. I actually make 6 different kinds of cookies, chocolate covered pretzels, and a couple of different kinds of truffles and each family gets a gift bag full of the goodies. I do a lot of holiday baking anyway so my girls and I have made a lovely tradition of spending the week before Christmas hanging out and baking and cooking and packaging while blasting obnoxiously loud Christmas music. We take pictures, get messy, and have a great time. Good luck!

 

[JENOS]

We ARE the 4 kid family in our family while everyone else only has one or two kids. I spoke with both sides of the family and basically told them it would be better if we all just stuck to taking care of each others kids. It bothered me that we were kind of the burden on everyone especially in today’s economy. And if we really want to get down and dirty about it, it also bothered me that the gifts given to our kids seemed to un-thoughtful (12 year old receiving brat dolls kind of thing). If you told me 7 months ago that your child really liked trains, guess what they got for Christmas; yet you couldn’t remember how old my kid is.
We have become big on giving to toys for tots and dropping off at the toy box at the police station.

 

[tlbwriter]

Since they give family gifts to you, I'd do the same for them. I'm in a similar position - we have have one child, and we have 6 nieces/nephews on DH's side. We only exchange gifts for them when we visit at Christmas, which is every other year. All they have to do is add one gift to their shopping list, and we add 6 gifts to ours, which is a little stressful sometimes! I might try to do a family gift next time - see if there's a video game they'd all enjoy or something like that.

 

[taximomfor4]

Might not solve the problem, but might help the $$. In our family, everyone (well, almost everyone...some seem to NEVER buy kid-gifts) who is 18+ buys small gifts for everyone under 18. The 18+ people are in an "adult" drawing, but teenagers are allowed to opt into the drawing. THe adult drawing is for a $25-50 gift. The kid-gifts are almost always under $10 each. Often under $5. A book, a small baby toy, a new hat/gloves, a bag with flavored lip glosses, etc.

So for 12-14 kids, one might spend $100-120 TOTAL. And each kid gets SOMETHING to open, going home with a kind of "gift bag" of assorted small items. Makes it fun, but breaks no bank.

To clarify, my aunt/uncle have 2 kids (both young adults now). They don't EACH buy for each kid, they buy as a family. Another family member and her dh have only bought like once EVER ... but everyone still gives little gifts to her son each year.

Then again, though, our family is VERRRRRY loosey goosey about gift-giving. So many have been through severe financial hardship in one year or another that nobody questions, nobody gets offended, and as long as they each end up with a few little trinkets, the kids don't compare gifts with each other and get upset if they "got less." Heck, as a mother, I don't even try to "even up" the gifts among my OWN children. It all comes out in the wash, I'm pretty sure.

Now if yours is a $25-50 per KID gift, it's a totally different thing. Maybe you can just reduce the amount spent per kid gift. Then it's mathematically much less different.

DD12 says last year, she came home from the extended family Christmas gathering with a bag of little things that included Lip Smackers lip glossx2, a white knit hat & gloves set, a paperback book, a new diary, a set of butterfly hair clips, a 500 pc jigsaw puzzle, a set of thin markers and plain paper, and a bottle of bubble bath. NOTHING in there cost $10 but she was happy as a clam.