What's your deal with holiday gifts?

I'm just wondering if you guys have a limit as to how much you spend on the kids for the holidays. I only have one SD but DH gets entirely out of control with her...it's insane. She doesn't even appreciate what she gets b/c it's too overwhelming. I'll also mention that she gets an insane amount of presents from: DH's mom, BM, BM's mother, BM's sister, my parents AND all of 8 of my grandparents, aunts and uncles and all 10 of DH's also buy her gifts. My house is a total Sh!tstorm after Christmas day. LOL

I want to set a monetary limit on him this year but I'm just not sure what "standard" is. What do you guys do?

Re: What's your deal with holiday gifts?

well I have a SS and SD and we don't really set a "Limit". OK well, we say $300 per kid but we always end up getting WAY more. Sadly, $300 doesn't get you very much these days.

For example, for SD....so far we got her a pair of chocolate UGGS ($140) and 1 pair of Abercrombie Jeans ($80)....we are already up to $220 for almost nothing! As much as we say we're not going to do it this year, in all honesty, we end up spending around $500 on each of them.

One thing I have learned is that if you go to Marshall's, you can get the same NAME BRAND items for a lot less but start shopping now before the Christmas rush. This way, instead of getting only 2 shirts from her favorite stores, she ends up getting 5 or 6. It works for us. Good Luck hun.

Re: What's your deal with holiday gifts?

Let's put it this way...
Over the years some Christmas gifts have been playstations, xboxes, jewelry tons of games,Ipods, a QUAD (yes a brand new one)etc..

Last year I tried to keep everything really light and DH went behind my back and bought SD one of those apple computers where the comp is actually in the moniter with a drawing/writing tablet!

I hate the holidays because of this!

Re: What's your deal with holiday gifts?

We both came from large families and grew up with limits, we do the same with SS. I agree that often kids who get anything and everything do not appreciate what they have. Our limit with SS really depends on the year, but generally $200-$300. Christmas is not about the presents.

Re: What's your deal with holiday gifts?

My dh never had a limit, it was whatever he could afford, this is before me. Now she gets one big gift and then little ones. But our limit is $300.00. She understands, but her b-day is 12-26 so it gets kind of overwelming for her anyway.

Re: What's your deal with holiday gifts?

We try to limit my stepson's gifts to $300 but we probably wind up spending around $400-500.

Re: What's your deal with holiday gifts?

Between my kids, my step kids, and DS we have to set a limit for them...we dont have a choice...but we try and keep things as even as possible.

I would never tell anyone, especially a grandparent, to set a limit. As a parent all I ask is that it be as equal as possible.

Re: What's your deal with holiday gifts?

We stopped focusing on the abundance of gifts a few years ago. Now DS21 & SD14 each get one thing that they choose-not too pricey. And then they both get some clothes & shoes or boots ( I'm a major bargain shopper) and money in their savings accounts. we adopt a needy family & I try to get them to help me shop for that but as they are getting older they are less involved. A few years ago we got a family with a Mom & 3 kids the daughter that was the same age as SD wanted pajamas with feet 'because my house is cold'. I think my kids were touched by that. Of course I bought the kid a crapload of toys & footy pajamas too
I ask the grandparents to give them one thing each, if they feel compelled to do more I suggest they by a bond or put money in the savings account.
We spend less than half of what we spent five years ago on Christmas.