To buy these presents for children this christmas

[Riggging]

I am so fed up of waste and buying presents for nieces and nephews they neither want or need (everything they want is way out of my price range) - aibu to adopt animals/ buy gifts connected to charities instead? They range from 6-18 years and plan is to buy family animal adoption packs or family 'bee saver' kits for the younger ones.

Awful! If you want to be woke don’t use Christmas as an excuse

Agree with this ^

Kids won't appreciate a charity donation in their name, maybe the cuddly tiger etc but you may as well just buy them the cuddly tiger and save yourself the cost of the donation! They certainly won't give a shit about bees.

Just give them cash in a card and maybe a bag of sweets. My DCs are always happy with that.

TBH even with vouchers, my DCs usually give their Amazon vouchers to me to use and I swap for cash as they often want to buy things from specific shops.

Charity donations are absolutely rubbish “gifts”. It’s not a gift at all really. YOU chose which charity you wanted to support and then put someone else’s name on it?
When I donate to charity, they are ones of my choosing.

Christmas is about being thoughtful, there is nothing thoughtful about forced donations.

I would go for something like this dependant on age and what the child likes.

Voucher to cinema
Voucher for a day out
Voucher for pottery painting
Voucher for trampoline centre

A family present of board game

Ask parents if there was something child had asked for or needed.

Vet day out vouchers and take them out yourself to use them.
No plastic, more time away from screens, win win.

"They neither want or need", you have said it yourself and unless you know a charity adoption gift pack is something they would want, I don't think it's a gift that will be received well.

Best bet is a £10 voucher or a tenner in a card!

Get one as a family gift and give the kids a tenner in a card

This reminds me of that friends episode when chandler (if memory serves) donated money to a charity for them.... it’s all a bit sanctimonious.

Have to agree with the sentiment, of give children money to spend on something they would like. Not necessarily vouchers, where shops disappear and you can’t use them.
Please don’t donate on their behalf

I HATE those things. They are so sanctimonious. I don't necessarily want people donating to charities whose values don't laugh with mine, in my name.

They are really shit gifts. Get them a voucher.

I stopped doing cards long before it was fashionable because of environmental issues.

We don't do Adult gifts and no unnecessary/not asked for gifts for children.

But this gets a no from me.

If you want to give to charity give up the special food and drink that you'd buy for yourself.

The child would rather get a £5.

My dad adopted owls at the local sanctuary for my 2 (10 & 7). They got 4 free visits and love seeing 'their' owls.

I sponsored a donkey for dd once. She was very pleased with it. Sadly it died the following month!

I understand not wanting to add to the unnecessary enormous mound of stuff at Christmas time, but I wouldn't go for charity gifts unless you know it's something the children would be in to. My DD for example would love to adopt a pet at a rescue centre.

I'm trying to reduce 'stuff' this year. We're going to give our DC an experience as their main present from us - voucher for horse riding. climbing centre, zookeeper day, laser tag... for example.

Stocking presents will be mainly nice but useful, edible things, little second hand gifts and books, etc.

Giving money doesn't get around the issue really as kids will most likely spend it on plastic tat!

As PP have said, some kids would love an animal adoption kit. I remember them being a really cool thing to get when I was a child. So if you think the child would like one, then go for it.

If you don't, how about clothes?

One really simple thing I'm trying to do to reduce waste is to ask for a gift receipt and put it in with every present. It doesn't have the price on it, but it makes it really easy for people to return it and makes it clear that I don't object if they do.

Give them cash or gift cards.

Just give them money. They are not going to want charity gifts. By all means give to charity but don't do it pretending it's a gift from them.