Christmas money - per child or not when someone has a big family ??

[Pontipinetree]

Not sure what to do - usually gift nieces and nephews and godchildren some money each Christmas (have always done this per child). However one family is huge and getting bigger ! So where all the others have 2 or 3 children one family has a lot meaning we give £20 per child but it’s manageable when it’s £40 or £60 per family but then one family is getting into the hundreds so we thought this year with things a bit more difficult we would just do £50 for each ‘set’ of children in each family.
It’s got back to us that this isn’t fair that we’ve always done £20 per child and this is relied on especially so this year and I feel guilty.

If you give money do you do it per child or just per family ? It just seems a lot when one family is so big compared to the others ?

AIBU to change things to just a set amount for everyone ?

Relied on? A Christmas present?

Tricky one. I am a single parent with one child. My sister has 4 kids and a husband. I assume the kids all get the same from the frank parents but I can completely see where you are coming from

It's a gift so you give what you can afford to give.
Family money sounds fair to me then parents can divide as they see fit

I would allow the same amount for each child, but make it less.

YANBU at all to change, the cheek of them!

Relying on Christmas money gifts which are given to children is ridiculous!!

Do what you want or need to do, don’t pay any attention to any noise from them.

No it's not fair.
You need to do per child
If it's too much money you just have to reduce how much you give to every single child (not just that family)

Especially this year? Its not your fault that someone is expanding their family so much that they can't afford to gift their kids.
How many kids in one family? Perhaps £15 per child?

It’s a gift , you give what you want to give . Personally if people are going to be getting picky I’d just buy them all a small gift instead - the same for all of them .

My mum does the same. In fact. She doesn't even gift it to the grandchildren. She gives each of us a fixed amount to spend on the children. So if there's one child or 6, it's the same amount and we spend it how we like. Its never been a problem

I would just do a secret Santa among all the children in the family

Definitely not being unreasonable. If they say they’re relying on these gifts then surely they should understand that everyone else is under more financial pressure too. They don’t get to decide how much other people spend on the children they chose to have.

Yes because we’ve been doing it for a few years now I think it’s expected

I would set the limit per child to a smaller amount.

Or

Work out a maximum budget per family that you can afford and if the number of children in the family would exceed the budget at £20 each give the WHOLE family a voucher for the amount for a takeaway voucher or a large gift to share.

I don’t think it’s fair to give 2 children £20 each and 5 children £8 each, no.
Especially not when the present is money, to children. A token “every family gets a board game and a tin of Quality Street” would be different. But here you’re literally handing out less cash to some kids than others.

Just work out your total budget, divide by the number of children: and that’s it.

Nobody is getting less because someone else is getting more.

I would suggest this for next year. The kids will have fun choosing.

7!!!!! And another on the way so much more than everyone else

I would give the same amount to each child - doesn’t seem fair that one child gets more than another because they have fewer siblings? I think you should treat them as individuals, basically. Absolutely fine to reduce the amount and only spend what you can afford in total and also natural for habits / family gifting traditions to change and evolve.

I think you mean expected, not relied on though?

Per child, it doesn't matter to us how many are in each family. We buy for that family because we want to, and wouldn't give more to some nieces/nephews than others just because they have more siblings. If there was a cost issue i personally would give maybe 10/15 per child rather than 20, for all the children not just the children in thay family. But they are cheeky saying they rely on it, it's a gift and shouldn't be expected

The message that got back to me was that it’s relied on (from MIL of course 😖)

I give my grandchildren the same amount per child rather than per family. If it got difficult for me to afford I would just give all of them a little less.

Just realised you give money and not gifts. If it’s getting tricky to give money per child I’d do smaller gifts for everyone or a family present they can all enjoy.

Flippin heck. I would suck it up for this year because its close and then next year tell everyone in like September that you're not doing individual child gifts anymore.

Yes maybe I need to make it a family gift a voucher and nice tin of biscuits or something each

While I would treat all the children as individuals regardless of the number of siblings I don’t think it’s up to your MIL to get involved and tell you what to do.