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.

I think £10 for Christmas is enough and £15 for birthdays.

I'd cut it down to £15 each tbh, at that age you can find great gifts they'll love without spending a fortune. Argos do good 2 for £25 or 2 for £20 deals, if I were you I'd use these.

In the 90s we would get 20p sellotaped to a card from aunties. Then we would have to write an extensive thank you letter in return. £20 is very reasonable.

Yes this is what we do.
I think it's fine to have a set amount per family, if they want it to be split between kids then that is fine or alternatively you could buy a gift for the family e.g. I have done a board games hamper in the past with a game and snacks for the family to enjoy, or you could buy cinema tickets and a bag of popcorn.

I think it's wrong for them to exclude you or only give a small token gift because you don't have children.

I spend £10-£20 on family kids, I’m the only single person in our generation.

My BIL always insists on buying me Christmas & birthday presents from himself, apart from the ones from my sister, which I find incredibly touching & thoughtful. His reasoning was ‘Well, you get them for me so why wouldn’t I?’

That’s rubbish when you’re the one that doesn’t have kids. At that stage in my life I did one “family” present - a board game or a movie night hamper type thing. Much cheaper than individual gifts and coherent with my sense of Christmas being a family time.

I think it’s fair to look at your own costs and to buy accordingly - to be fair that’s what your siblings have done so they can hardly complain about it.

are they otherwise nice to you and spend quality time with you socially? That will make a difference to any reply.

If no, they are not being good family members, if yes then the amounts of gifts after you all agreed no adult gifts is of no issue in my opinion.

Maybe, if you are able to talk freely with them, suggest that a small gift card is more suitable if they are going to continue gifting you stuff or a box of chocolates only, if you do not want/need what they are buying then its a waste and I assume they will not want to hear about the waste ...

This is completely unfair to you OP, generally in my family gifts are for dc only but childless siblings get a decent gift. It isn't reasonable to just expect them to give and not receive. I would buy one family gift in your situation, a game or similar and cut right down on the amount you spend.

Is it the children buying ypu
something with their pocket money?

this sounds like good advice but depending on how the family attitudes are, could alienate op. Make her look bad as its "all about the kids" The replies here all depend on the type of people her family are.

My honest good advice as a mother of 2.....

Cut right back...

Birthday - £15 cap max (look for 2 for £20 deals) or £10 in a card.

Christmas - 1 x "family" Board game which you can all play together once opened at xmas. Its a nice wat to connect with them at xmas.
Maybe a tin of biscuits or some chocs/sweets

No. They don’t even write in birthday cards

We all get on well, but I think it’s pretty rich for them to expect more and more spent on their children with nothing in return

I would definitely cut down at Xmas. It's an easy time to start putting a book token or a tenner in a card. Makes shopping easier. Then put a bit more effort into birthdays, but not more than £25 each. I don't think your siblings are being mean on purpose but haven't really thought about how it feels to you. It is a shame but gift giving can soon become an expectation which is when you start to feel taken advantage of.

It is tricky with nieces and nephews, I have one dd who is older now. One brother and sil have 4 kids and the other has 2 kids, this adds up a lot at Christmas.

I put a limit of £10-£15 per child.

I also rarely get a direct thank you from any of them 🫤

That seems very thoughtless of them. My child free sibling bought gifts for us and DC and I always bought my sibling and spouse a decent present in return.

For other siblings (of both me and DH) we stick to kids only. We are still worse off because they all have more children - I had to point out to DB once when he suggested fairly expensive items for his DC, that he had one DN to buy for while I had four at the time. To be fair, he got the message!

my mum takes the approach of spending the same budget per household for her DC/DGC as she thinks that’s fairest. So spends more on my DC than my DB’s spends more on other sibling than me etc.

@xmasdilemmasalready cut it down to £20 this year and see what happens.

If you get proper thank-you notes, then carry on, if they barely bother to text "thanks" then cut it to a tenner next year.

Your siblings need to learn you are not Santas Cashpoint!

I think his family get bigger and you get older you only buy presents for your immediate family at your kids maybe your brother and or sister and parents but not for their children and not for their partners

I've also heard a thing where the kids have to write thank you. Letter in advance.

I’m not sure it appears you agreed no gifts for adults and not only expect gifts you wish them of similar value and as such now wish to penalise the children as you don’t get them?

I think that’s hard to tell your siblings, that you want good gifts and if not you will punish the kids and buy them less. Yikes.

£20 per child for a niece or nephew is absolutely fine.

Reduce the birthday amount to 15, maybe 20 for special birthdays. From my experience and reading many tales about this on mumsnet.
These things never balance out, if you have children, they won’t be catching up on gifts or babysitting. Stop while you are ahead, I’d buy them a tube of sweets or small selection box at Christmas going forward.

I think £20 is fair enough. I'm the childless auntie too and that's my budget for the kids' birthday and Christmas presents. And we don't do adult presents in our family so I get nothing which I am totally fine with!

Get them all selection boxes from B&M for Xmas! If anyone says anything say oh I thought £3.50 was the new present limit as that’s what I got for my birthday?

YANBU
In our family we have also made the decision to focus on the children so the 2 brothers with children only exchange gifts for the children but the brother without children and gran get similar amount spend on them. This is to prevent them buying for 4 children but receiving nothing back.