to be uncomfortable about extravagant presents for dcs

[godspeed]

my brother lives abroad and sent a large parcel of christmas presents for my dcs. In total, there were larger and more gifts than father christmas was planning to bring them and also some overlap in type....I was having gifts delivered to his dcs but planned on about £15 if even that per child, whereas he has spent about £60-70 for each of mine...we come from a large family, with lots of nephews and nieces and just can't spend hundreds and hundreds on presents for them all. Well maybe I could but just would never dream of it....
what to do? I haven't ordered their gifts yet - should I try to match their generosity? We ended up exchanging some of what he sent us as there were overlaps with what father christmas is bringing/what we already have...

we had the same issue my bil asked what our son would like he asked for binoculars so they sent him £150 ones with night vision, i was expecting £20 ones from argos.

to be hones i try to get the nicest gift i can with in my price range and thats it they know what we both do for a living so they cannot expect us to get their children £150 worth of gifts but to be honest their usually very gracious about what we get them.

Last year i sent their boy a hand painted book of burmese folk tales my sil is burmese they loved it and a sip at £20 OF Ebay

i think its about planning ahead and thinking about who the children really are and what they like.

if they love you they wont care that you cannot price match them

this year i have made him a sock monkey and brought some pjs with monkeys on them

pagwatch - I'm not advocating strict denial to 'teach' a 6 yo and 3 yo, we have got them lots from fc and I do feel that an immediate family member buying them another £150 worth of stuff is excessive. If they were teenagers and a wii arrived out of the blue from their uncle that would probably be amazing but at their age I think it is important to keep an eye on how much they are getting

I hardly think getting a stocking and a boardgame is strict denial. None of us parent in a vacuum. My daughter's other life with her father's family means that we have had to parent very mindfully when it comes to combatting materialism. They are a family who spend tens of thousands if not more at Christmas and yet cannot stand each other . Chatter over Christmas dinner consists of how much tax can we dodge, who manages to treat their employees the worst and how the poor should be in workhouses. For that reason I think it is very important that my family and friends support my husband and I in teaching my daughter about the real meaning of Christmas which to us is nothing to do with presents .

You may parent within very different circumstances and therefore make different decisions.

pag - your DS1 sounds lovely :)

When they're young, I don't think children have much of an idea of how much anything costs - my DS is as happy with something that cost a few quid as he is with something that costs ten times that.

But as they get older, I think they get a lot more clued up. Interestingly, when I was a child, one set of grandparents were hugely generous but made it very clear we were at best tolerated when we went to visit, while the other had a lot less cash and were very careful with it. But they spent a lot of time with me - my grandad gave me a row in his veg patch and then wrote to me weekly with updates on my produce's progress. I absolutely adored him and my gran whereas the other set of GPs were people we had to visit as a chore, rather than a pleasure, despite always being given lots of toys and sweets.

I'd like to think that today's children (despite the horribly materialistic world we live in now) will still value time and really caring about someone more than 'stuff'.

Lady, he is a nice young man which is quite nice and a bit of a shock

But tingle with respect you are creating two stereotypes as if nothing exists in between.

The cliche rich family who have loads of stuff but hate each other probably exists but is about as relevant to most people as the way the daily mail define people on benefits.

It is simply nonsense to suggest that normal, love g, generous people who happen to make a few quid suddenly abandon any normal rules of decency and become totally obsessed with money.
People are far more complicated than that.

I grew up desperately poor. If a kind aunt had bought me my first dress or something extraordinary lime a dolls house I doubt that everything I had learnt in the preceding years about frugality and the need to work and earn and share, would have gone out of the window. And I understood fundamentally from an early age that our circumstances were not related to my parents efforts or desire to provide for us. Getting a gift from a relative who happened to have more money would not have diminished them one iota.

I am not sure why what I am saying seems so challenging or radical. Kids can have treats without losing their moral compass. Can't they ?

We all agree that children should be taught to understand that things are nit what makes the world go around. I just believe that a treat is not going to compromise or undermine that.

I am sorry. Having re read your post I think I have been interpreting your points too broadly when youbseem to have specific issues with your extended family.

I just get a bit umpty as the suggestion that having money means that you are shallow,
materialistic and any attempt to treat the ones you love comes from a place of disinterest in actually loving them.

But I have interpreted your comments to widely and apologise for that

No worries.

Pag you actually seem a much nicer person than me. When I had access to a millionaire lifestyle I became a complete bitch. I look back and shudder , I don't doubt I have hang ups about money. My exes family offered me a huge sum of money to have dd aborted and then an even larger sum to hand her over at birth and walk away forever. I have watched them sack women for being pregnant or just being female. They bully and intimidate anyone, who is perceived as weak or has less than them. They have commited countless crimes and paid for "justice" I sat back and watched this happen because I liked my lifestyle .

I do not think however that I offer my daughter extreme denial. She gets a present but she is just not that interested. For her the special part of Christmas is the getting ready. She has spent today at a pottery school making a pot for me. Yesterday we spent the day making chutneys and biscuits for people. Tomorrow we are out riding together all day. Those are the kind of things that make her Christmas - not stuff.

Glad I saw thus be fire I switch off..

.

I think my 'strict denial' was just a rebuttal of the suggestions of rampant materialism I was being accused of (as it was appearing to me).

I have money issue but only in that I get quite convinced that it may not last and I switch between being frugal and stashing money away , and buying gifts for the people I love while I can.

My parents worked all their lives, bloody hard, and my dad died without a penny. In the last year of his life I was able to send him to Paris and for a flying lesson.

I felt so grateful and I was able to do that and loved him for letting me in spite of being a very proud man.

We are all products of these things aren't we?

I get your views. I hope you see where I am coming from.

I can see where you are coming from.

I grew up in poverty and was determined that my children would never experience it. Infact I was determined I would never experience it again as an adult. For a time that was a good thing, it gave me a drive that helped me get to Oxford, get my first and become a worker in the city commanding a six figure salary with stupid bonuses. What was sad though was that I wanted to teach, but a fear of poverty prevented me. That is ridiculous because teachers are hardly poor! I had to have all the status symbols because that was how I viewed my worth, house in the country, pad on the river, sports car I couldn't drive, designer clothes etc. I then met my first husband and he like me had come from poverty and was busy building up a stockpile of stuff to prove his worth. I went into teaching as he had more money that I knew what to do with so I could start following my dream as it were. This was the first chink in our armour as I began to mix in circles who did not give a shit about how much money I had. I also realised how little my life was worth and how unhappy I was. Perhaps if I had married a rich guy that I loved my story would have been different. Perhaps if I had married into a family that had not allowed money to corrupt then I would be different! Perhaps if my own parents had instilled a level of confidence in me I may have been a happier rich person!

I do think that it can be difficult to have a certain level of wealth and remain grounded or even pleasant. It is not impossible but it is difficult. At the time , when I was acting like an utter twat, everyone said yes to me, everyone was my friend and noone dared cross me. I became a spoilt child and perhaps because I had missed out on a childhood first time round I exploited that.

I think we also give our children what we never had. In my case it is attention and a wealth of experiences. I spend a lot of money on dance classes, horse riding, art classes, sailing etc. Infact I know I spoil her in that regard. But that was the one thing I never had either in my childhood or in my early adulthood.