Xmas - Jewish nanny - Gifts etc

[MrsMattie]

Our nanny is Jewish. She's religious, but not orthodox. She doesn't celebrate Christmas and obviously does celebrate Hannukah.

I'm just wondering what we should do about gifts, really. Should we buy her a Christmas present or a Hannukah gift or what? Or both? And what would be appropriate?

Also, she brings her son to work with her, so we have a relationship with him too. I would like to give him a nice gift - but to give for Hanukkah, yes? Or Xmas?

Sorry, may sound really dim, but just want to be sure I don't offend and get it right!

I think since they are Jewish and not Christian I'd go with Hannukah. You could ask nanny what would be approriate from your kids to her son, and then extrapolate that into what would be appropriate from you to her.

You could just get her an end of the year gift for her hard work over the year.

If it were just her, I'd go with juneybean's suggestion. Given there's her son as well, I'd ask her when she would prefer you give him his present. And then do the same for her as well.

I used to work in a nursery that was mostly asian I used to get Eid gifts and Christmas gifts and we used to give out gifts at each occasion too- its nice to respect other peoples religion and certainly shouldnt cause offence.

Ask your Nanny what she would prefer.

I once worked for a jewish family and they never celebrated christmas, but, accepted the christmas gifts I bought for their DC in the spirit that it was given. They did actually tell the children about Hannukah(sp) and Christmas and that's why they got a present from me at christmas.

They were quite young and so we never had to worry about 101 questions