To review my spending on nieces and nephews for Christmas?

[xmasdilemmasalready]

I might be being unreasonable here, feel free to tell me if I am.

I have 5 nieces and nephews, all under 10. 3 of them also have birthdays in December. I am childless.

A few years ago my older siblings made a group chat and told me that we’d stop doing Christmas gifts for each other as they’d rather we put the money into the children.

That’s fine, I usually get a token from them at Christmas or my birthday because I do some childcare for them. I love to do it, and don’t expect anything from them for it.

But I’ve noticed that recently it’s been gifts for under a tenner for me, for birthdays and Christmas, and the expectation has grown for what I’ll spend on them. Across the month of December I can reasonably spend just over £300 on gifts for birthdays and Christmas. I know that only comes out to about £40 per child for each event but it’s starting to grate on me a little. This year for my birthday I got £3.50 worth of cosmetics from one family. I’d spent £80 on the December birthdays for their two children.

I have to admit it just feels a little deflating. Like they’ve decided the children deserve a lot more from me, but they don’t want to spend anything on me. I don’t begrudge getting them gifts, but I am starting to feel the pinch and looking ahead to budgeting for them is a bit much. I’d much rather spend a lot on my parents, and my partner and friends.

AIBU to cut it back this year? £20 each maximum for each child for each event? That would cut my spending down to £160 for them.

Seems totally reasonable to me - there's also a lovely thread on here that runs all year looking for bargain buys to spread the pain of Christmas budgeting that might be worth following?

The one thing, as a December child myself, you should watch out for is spending £20 on the December birthdays and then a lot more on the ones in the year when you can afford it.

I’m going to take it down to £20 for all birthdays as well, because I just think it reaches a point where it takes the piss a bit

You spend however much or little you choose to. End of.

YANBU. They’ve done a right number on you.

They should be getting you a nice gift.

I would spend a tenner on each child max.

What do they get you for your birthday?

Yes, reduce your spending. It’s poor form for your siblings to not give you a real gift for birthdays and holidays since you don’t have children.

I would simplify your gift giving and give each child a book or do a board game as a family gift instead.

I do £20 for nieces and nephews and I think that’s fine.

Another option is to talk to them and ask to set a budget per family for Christmas between you all. Then the other families can choose if the adults want to opt out of getting a gift and therefore the budget gets split across just the children. Then your ‘families’ budget just comes to you. That seems fairer to me. If they wont agree to that, then I would shift to getting all the dc in a family one joint present for Christmas, something like a board game.

I was wondering how the families would react if you said you were going to do presents at 6 months after the birthdays ie in June to spread the load.

But £20 from uncles and aunts is plenty anyway.

@nomas
She said one family got her £3.50 worth of cosmetics.

Very unreasonable and short sighted of the family.
I would tell them I have stopped buying until I have a child, soon or never.
I always buy my cousin a decent gift at Christmas, she buys presents for my children, I try to match the price as close as possible.

We used to buy for our child free sibling in the same way as we bought for our other's children. You could of course just switch to buying for their birthdays and only give them all a token something at Christmas.

Usually a gift voucher, ranges from £15-£30

We only buy for the kids in families with them but no more than £25-30 per child

Where our siblings have no kids we spend the same £25-30 per adult

YANBU.

Yes. That one particularly pissed me off, because usually they were quite good about a reasonable gift at Christmas.

But they had an expensive holiday to pay for so cut the load wherever they could.

I do £20-25 for birthdays and everyone gets £10 gifts/cash at Christmas.

YANBU, I’d spend £20 per child for birthdays and £10 per child for Christmas personally if I were you.

I've cut back massively on what I spend overall on Christmas and Birthday presents including for my DH and DD.

A token gift is more than enough for relatives, and even then I limit it to my parents (DH'S are no longer around), Dsis, Bil, niece and nephew, and 2 aunts.

Do you know what they spend on each others children?

So they were happy spending on a nice holiday for THEMSELVES, and didn't cut that, but YOU were the "could" bit that they cut.

What a cheek!

Would spending an extra £6.50 to make it a whole tenner on you have made that much of a difference to their holiday?! No.

This is the position I'm in with my sisters kids.
Since they were little, I've done them a christmas stocking. I know from reports from my sister and her DH, that the kids absolutely LOVE it. Like, it's fully a highlight of their Christmas. I won't go into details, but it's a GOOD stocking.
This coming Christmas is the last year I'm doing it. The kids are both older children, and in the about 6 years of doing it, I've never once had a direct thank you from the children, and they virtually ignore me the rest of the year, APART from the day I deliver them their stocking. Yeah, I'm out.
I already told my DSis that I was stopping after this year, as "they're getting too hard to shop for little things I think they'll like". But no, I'm stopping because they're ungrateful. It's a lot of work and expense for me, on top of dealing with my own family's christmas, but I'd fully intended to do it until they turned 18. Not any more.
I'll never tell them, or Dsis the truth, but it is what it is.

Focus and the kids and what they want. You can absolutely get them things they will love for under £20 each. Board game, Lego kit, box set of a few books, fun nerf gun, indoor basketball set, craft kit, etc, etc. As long as you are putting thought into the gifts and getting them things they will like (and you sound like a loving aunt so I bet you will) the kids won’t notice the change in expenditure at all.

Keep in mind that kids go to birthday parties all the time and have would rarely spend over £20 per gift or it would get extortionate, so the children’s toy market absolutely delivers heaps of options a at that price point.

I don’t know. I think the idea was basically they didn’t have to get stuff for me. The line was “because Christmas is all about the kids”, but to me it’s about family.

My kids get so much at Christmas anyway I'd be happy just with a token gift from their aunt. I actually ask people to buy less as my kids get to a point where they get so much they don't appreciate it. I'd be even more delighted to get a night of babysitting as a gift!!!

My own DD has this problem with 6 nibs to buy for and birthdays all close together. My other 2 children who have the children were always pretty generous towards her. I think she cut back a bit and they cut back on her a bit but nothing has really been said
I would hope if or when she has kids they will remember the effort she made but who knows when it happens.

When I had three and my brother had one I generally spent more than him on his one but she lived away and we didn't see her often and my kids benefited from him being a good uncle and visiting them and causing mayhem.

It's the sheer volume of kids that causes the expense when there is only one it's not such a problem.
But I don't think yabu @xmasdilemmasalready