Sending christmas gifts to families that live abroad

[winetomorrow]

I used to send individual presents to all the kids in my family and it cost an absolute fortune, and was rarely reciprocated. The last couple of years we've had a 'theme'. One year we all just bought our own family a board game and some chocolates and that was the gift from the other families. Another year we did books but it ended up costing a fortune in postage! Anyone do anything similar or have any ideas for this year? There are boys and girls with ages ranging from 2 to 14... any ideas most gratefully received!

Order direct from a website with free postage (e.g. book depository)
Order from a website in their country as it's usually free postage inland.
Send cash.
Send present small enough so that it's a letter not a parcel.
Organise with parents how much to spend, transfer money and get them to buy.

I feel your pain! We used to live overseas so send a lot of parcels through the year for birthdays and Christmas and new babies and new jobs and new houses etc! I don’t mind doing it, in fact I really enjoy it because it’s a lovely way to keep connected to our closest friends who all just happen to live 3500 miles away.

Having said that, we do budget for postage costs - for us, it’s an important part of our spending so we’re fine with it.

We do also have family overseas and it’s a different story with them however. It was different when we lived away too. We aren’t super close to my family, and while we have made a ton of effort over the years, it’s never been reciprocated. It certainly wasn’t when we lived away. We now utilise Amazon a lot and just buy direct from the US site for them. I don’t even bother with birthday cards anymore. We also just buy things from their wishlists because it’s not worth the hassle of choosing something only for it to be discarded with disinterest.

What about gift cards? They don’t need to be impersonal. You can choose specific gift cards for each child - their favourite toy store, their favourite coffee shop, cinema, online gaming etc... I know the youngest is only 2 but my lot all enjoyed shopping and getting to choose a toy, even from very young. If it’s too awkward to buy for an overseas store/location then how about setting up a family “kitty”. You all contribute a set amount and then it’s split equally between all the DC and the parents of said DC just buy for their own out of the kitty.

How about looking on Amazon locally?

It may be too late for this year but look into sending things surface mail rather than airmail. It’s roughly half the cost, if you send to Aus/NZ for example the last posting date for Xmas was beginning of October. I do it for birthdays too, just put in the diary a couple of months early. My take on the postage has been that if they lived in the UK we would drive and see them or meet for a drink at Christmas and the cost of that would be greater than the cost of the postage. Helps to put that cost into perspective.
Other ideas I have done: eBay for their country-often you can buy new items from eBay (from shops rather than individuals), I transfer money to the parents and put a handmade voucher in the card for x amount to buy something specific (eg one year it was something they needed for a hobby). As previous poster said have used book depository and local online shops.

My dm lives abroad and is a bit hot and miss. Now i send her a photo calendar which she loves but even then postage was over £7.

For her grandkids she usually leaves cards with cash in with each parent (same for birthdays) but as she doesn't come every year some miss out. EG she came last year just before my ds birthday so he got a card and money and so did dd. This next visit is after his next birthday but before hers so he got nothing but she likely will get something.

For last few years she has sent us adults a food shop. Great except she buys a load of stuff we don't want and isn't organised enough to arrange before xmas so we often get it between xmas and new year when the sight of more food makes you sick 😂

I would recommend shopping from uk sites (assuming thats where family is based) or just saying i will buy something for my family from you guys and you do yours.

Thanks all. For birthday presents I always order from amazon or other UK places (I'm one of the ones abroad). My kids usually get a text a day or two after their birthdays saying sorry we forgot! If we do the 'all buy something for their family' thing at least I'm guaranteed to actually get something. However there's also some of the kids that I suspect their parents wouldn't bother and so they'd think we just didn't bother which I would hate. I'm thinking of just doing some token stationery or something this year, little things I can post in envelopes. Or sending to my favourites and sending the others a note saying your owe my kids 10 birthdays so we'll catch up when you do (I won't, it's not the kids fault)!

Either send money (ideally by bank transfer rather than in the mail) or buy from a local shop with free or cheaper shipping.

Why are you sending gifts if they are not reciprocated?

Money won't work as we'll just all be transferring it around the world to each other so the only winners are the banks! It works best when we think of a theme and buy for our own families, But we have too many board games so need a different idea. I buy for the kids because they're my family and it's not their fault if their parents don't buy for my kids. As with many families, it's complicated but it's important for me to make sure that there kids know I'm there (even though physically I'm not at the moment).

*the kids know, not there kids!

Are you sure people aren't trying to hint that they don't want to participate anymore? That said, other ideas:

• a subscription to a magazine
• sweatshirts (maybe all the same then you can swap presents with them all wearing them)
• a book that all the kids then read together
• balls! My kids are all quite sporty so love getting footballs - other balls are available!

The kids probably get enough presents already. We had this with my SIL’s kids. We just realized that it was a waste of time exchanging presents. They already have loads of stuff. We don’t have a lot of space. It was just unnecessary.

@winetomorrow - I get it. I have the same balancing act between wanting to maintain a relationship - particularly with my nieces and nephews - and getting utterly fed up of being the one who makes all the (expensive) effort with nothing in return.

I do wonder if gift cards might be the route to go down. Even if you specified that they all had to be on a theme - like food. So the older ones can get for Starbucks or Nando’s or somewhere they like going with their friends, and the younger ones can get for their favourite ice cream place, or the place they like to go to for cake.

I lived abroad and one of my brothers lives abroad too always used amazon for nieces/nephews or if my brother wanted something for the kids I'd transfer the amount to his uk bank from my uk bank acc and he'd buy it from foreign one. Even amazon vouchers gift vouchers for skiing lessons/cinema locally. It is a pain transferring money though. Posting is also a nightmare, one of my parcels took ages to arrive then got returned to me in the end and baby outgrew. Also hated the idea of disappointing kids if parcels were late. Love your family theme idea though.

Advent calendars is one I've often done. Has to go early so doesn't usually get caught up in post. Used up. Relatively light to post.

I totally get it. I have family in NZ and I wish I knew of some stores over there that deliver so I could order online. I don’t even think they have Amazon over there.

Moongirl10, an amazon equivalent in NZ is MightyApe. There's also a site called Funkygifts which is pretty good. Also, for younger kids there's one called Squoodles who are local and usually deliver the next day :)

@Moongirl10 check out this thread. Lots of Aus/NZ online retailers listed

Presents to send to Oz www.mumsnet.com/Talk/promotional_codesbargains/3714578-presents-to-send-to-oz

Thank you so much @winetomorrow and @nakedavengeragain! Huge help!!