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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

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Original poster

to give joint presents for Christmas?

18 replies

Winniethewylde · 23/10/2015 15:22

My DDs do, generally, play together a fair bit. Of course there is the normal squabbling and 'I had it first...' but nothing too bad.

I'm now finding that a lot of the things they want to play with are the same eg. Play doh, play mobil, Lego, craft stuff etc but I keep hearing DD1 telling DD2 'that was MINE before so I should have a go with it first' etc and most of DD2s things were originally DD1s that have been passed along but are still played with by both.

Anyway, thinking about Christmas, I was thinking of giving them quite a few joint presents as it seems silly to give them individual sets of say, play mobil that will be all put together and played with as a whole anyway. I had an older brother and we played with different things so I didn't experience this but did anyone have this issue and did it go down ok or should I give separate things? Seems a bit of a non issue but hey

OP posts:

abbieanders · 23/10/2015 15:24

Can you combine? So they each have an individual present, but santy has left family presents too?

KinkyAfro · 23/10/2015 15:24

I don't think it's a problem with your own kids but I wouldn't gift joint presents to anyone else's kids...

HaydeeofMonteCristo · 23/10/2015 15:30

As long as you don't give joints as presents I think you will be fine .

Original poster

Winniethewylde · 23/10/2015 15:34

No I wouldn't give to others and of course DDs would get some individual presents as they have asked for different things, just some would be joint. I just don't know if others have done this and it's worked out ok?

OP posts:

TillITookAnArrowToTheKnee · 23/10/2015 15:34

I do it with some of DDs presents - last year I got 10 Disney Princess fancy dresses (heavily discounted on eBay) and wrote "To X & Y" on them. Neither of them have a favourite princess and I knew if I split them 5 each they'd be constantly squabbling. We've not had any arguments so far, and they loved having 'extra' presents (they were in a separate pile)

Original poster

Winniethewylde · 23/10/2015 15:40

Ah that's good. I agree that if I separated things out they'd probably fight more over who's was who's so that's good to hear.

OP posts:

Hobbes8 · 23/10/2015 17:46

I had joint presents with my brother growing up. Our birthdays are one day apart. I dontremember it being an issue - it meant we could get bigger things!

RoisinIwanttofightyourfather · 23/10/2015 18:04

When mine were little Santa brought everyone individual presents and some presents for all the family, usually games, books, Lego, art stuff. I think it makes sense to share some stuff.

WhyCantIuseTheNameIWant · 23/10/2015 18:08

Yes. Go for it. A mix of shared and individual will be great.

Senpai · 23/10/2015 19:07

Me and DB got joint presents as a game system and we saved up and went half and half on some games. We'd still bicker sometimes about it, but mostly we shared pretty well. We had a system where we just knew who's turn it was to be player 1. We'd also get family presents like board games or a theater kit: popcorn, family friendly movies, and some hot chocolate packets. Those were fun too.

We still shared pretty ok when we wanted to play together with each other's toys. But we would take turns picking which toy was ours to play with for that game. So cars, he'd pick one, I'd pick one, and we'd each get what we wanted or close enough. Then play with the cars on the carpet map harmoniously. We did bicker over toys though if we weren't in a sharing mood and joint toys made no difference if we wanted the same thing.

I think joint gifts are a good idea though. That way they don't fight over which toy piece is "theirs".

Cel982 · 23/10/2015 19:12

We've started doing this with the nieces and nephews now as the families are getting bigger (agreed beforehand with all the adults, obviously). One decent present like a board game, Lego set etc for each 'set' of kids to share.

SummerNights1986 · 23/10/2015 19:21

Mine ds's are 7 and 5 and we've bought quite a few joint presents over the years. Mainly the 'big' presents...a football table, a basketball hoop set, a mini pool table, a play kitchen. Stuff that would be silly to just buy for one, or to buy double of.

They do tend to be into much the same stuff but for the smaller toys I have lots of similar-doubles. So two sets of the kids roller skates in different colours. They're into How to train my dragon, and they have one dragon each but different types. Both love hotwheels, but have their 'own' cars, in different designs and so on.

Anything that forms part of a big 'set' is definitely worth buying joint to share. We have a lot of kinex/lego/other building stuff and it's always shared.

FFSYourself · 23/10/2015 19:36

We did this as all 4 DC were close in age. We would share the shared presents out but make it clear to the DC beforehand.

I gave my DC the choice whether or not to have shared presents and they always choose to as they got bigger presents.

It was even more advantageous to do this as they got older with bigger expensive items such as computer games and consoles.

honeyroar · 23/10/2015 20:20

Ask them if they'd prefer a few of their own things or lots of things to share?

angelcake20 · 23/10/2015 20:24

DS and DD have birthdays 2 weeks apart (2 year gap). They often get joint presents, including their 2 main ones this year, as they have similar interests.

Witchend · 23/10/2015 22:48

I hated joint presents. Sorry.

I always got them with dsis. WW firstly have totally different interests so it rarely was a good one for both, typically it was a bit meh for both. Then dm always insisted it went in dsis room because hers was twice the size of mine, even if it suited me better, which meant I effectively had to ask every time I wanted to use it.
To add to that dbro would then have a separate one, which, almost always was basically equivalent to our joint one, so it felt like we got half rather than anything else.

The only joint one that worked was duncle when we were older got the whole family a joint jigsaw, which we did all together.

onecurrantbun1 · 24/10/2015 07:49

Mine will be 4 and almost 2 so i think a bit younger than yours. They're having a large doll's house as a joint present and a furniture kit each. I was one of 3 and remember having shared gifts - obviously any board games and craft materials, but also Duplo and Playmobil, and an indoor play tent when I was 7 went down especially well, we all slept in it every night until we went back to school. The boys also had joint games consoles when they got older (10+) as we only had one tv so no point not sharing! We still got stockings and one or two small presents each.

Iammad · 24/10/2015 08:41

I have bought an xbox one as a joint for my two sons who share a room!
There is no way I would spend £300 each and have two in one room!
They will get a couple of little pressents each.
Sometimes you just can not buy them two of everything, in life you have to share give and take.

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