Gift subscription- what is fair?

[tangerino]

My kids have a subscription to a Kids National Geographic mag- I pay for it.

I've just received an email saying that my son's godmother has given him a gift subscription for Christmas- to the same magazine.

Obviously there is no point getting two copies. From what I can tell, the gift sub is all paid for- suspect it cannot be cancelled. WWYD?

A. tell his godmother to see whether she can cancel it? (Seems ungrateful.)
B. cancel our subscription and give the money saved to my son, explaining to him what has happened (he's 11 so will understand)
C. cancel our subscription and not give anything to our son (my OH's preference- I think this is really unfair and means the gift is effectively to us, not our son)
D. something else.

(Complicating factor is that our subscription is shared by both our kids and it's actually my daughter who enjoys it more. but I can just tell them to carry on sharing so I don't think that's too much of a problem.)

Cancel yours, get your son to share his with his sister, use the money you're saving to do something else for them? Another magazine, membership to something locally, a day trip, join the national trust?

Think it's unfair to cancel your subscription and not give him anything to compensate. Maybe a trip for the whole family and your son gets to choose where? Or another subscription for something you'd all like.

Thanks, both.

I just called the mag and actually you can cancel gift subscriptions. So I could ask his godmother to cancel and get something else, or I could cancel ours. Can't work out which is better- seems rather rude to ask her to cancel but I know I would definitely rather be told in that situation.

I would not be offended if, as an Auntie and Godmother I got asked to change my gift because the child I was buying for already got the subscription.
I'd just find something else to buy instead.
I'd be more annoyed if you cancelled your own and he got nothing extra like your husband is suggesting. That is taking the piss!

Thank you- you're right of course. I am overthinking it- I'll just let her know.

I would not be offended if, as an Auntie and Godmother I got asked to change my gift because the child I was buying for already got the subscription.

^this

But I would give a suggestion of replacement "oh, that is a lovely thought but he already has Nat Geo, he woudl LOVE a subscription to [whatever] instead"

Our kids love The Week, it's a weekly magazine full of the weeks news but in a kid friendly format, we read it over breakfast on the weekend and it gets us all talking about stuff, also helps the kids understand things better e.g when trump won and all the kids at school were saying we were going to war??!! It helped ours understand the real situation.

Ask the magazine company to transfer your own subscription to someone else for a year, as a gift? Or pick a different magazine and transfer your own subscription to that?

C and spend the savings on something else for your child.