Different value Christmas gifts

[TomorrowIsNow]

I have a DD5 who sees her cousin, my DN (also 5) regularly and are close. Five months ago we welcomed twins, whereas DN is an only child.

BIL (DN’s dad) is one for setting budgets for Christmas and suggested £20 for the kids to my DH, his brother. We said fine, I’d have probably budgeted £15 for DN but made sure I spent £20.

Didn’t really think about it further, and certainly didn’t expect BIL to spend £60 on us, but on Christmas Day the situation was that DD got a jigsaw ‘from her cousin’ and In exchange DN got a pretty good toy that was very very popular (and DD was so jealous of!!!)

So I’m not expecting BIL to spend three times as much on our kids. And DD didn’t say anything, certainly was not ungrateful or upset about it (I would not tolerate poor behaviour when receiving gifts). But I wondered if anyone had this situation because it will happen every birthday and Christmas. Will my daughter mention it? Is it fair she gets less because she has siblings? should I tell her that’s why (when she’s older)?

Please don’t read this as me being ungrateful or expecting more to be spent on my kids, I’m not being grabby just wondering how to handle

I think your BIL has made this complicated by setting a budget in such an odd way. You should have a budget per child, if you want to go ahead with a set amount.

I really do empathise with your BIL (we have an only child, and most of the families we buy gifts for have 2-3 children). I guess in theory we’re ‘not getting the same value back’ if we exchange with a family with a couple of kids- but that’s not what gifting is about, is it.

Suggest a budget per child (a token amount is fine I think). Or just discontinue gifting and go out for the day instead- this is what we do with my best friend now and it’s much nicer than another toy to add to the pile on Christmas Day.

I’m torn! If we say £10 per child they have to spend three times what we do. If we don’t, my daughter gets a third of what her cousin does. No easy answer!

I think it’s about giving what you can fundamentally, but the disparity between children isn’t ok. We give what we can afford to the children we know, but this does feel a bit penny pinching of your BIL. I think if he hadn’t asked for a budget it would be ok, but he’s made it weird now… And like I say, I’m in the position where we always spend more because we have an only child.

To be honest I don't think it's an issue. At least not for your DD. I highly doubt at this age she will notice that her present is 1/3 the value of her cousin's present. She might think that her uncle tends to give her small-ish presents but then you can get lovely inexpensive presents for this age group and you never know what they take a liking too anyway. Also, she doesn't have to love every present she gets. When she is old enough to make that comparison with her cousin (and the correct calculation) she will also be old enough for you to explain to her how it came about. Even then I don't think she would or should feel bad about it really. I assume she gets presents from other people as well ... like you.

From a transactional point of view it's fair enough I think as it means that both you and bil spend roughly the same. What I've noticed is that when we just had one child our friends with two kids would give two presents to our one child, ie one present from each of their children to our DD (and we would of course give each of their children one child). I always thought it isn't necessary but now that we have two kids I'll do the same. It's a nice way to balance out things.

To answer your question I don't think you have to handle it at all except possibly to teach your daughter to be grateful for and appreciative of any present she receives rather than comparing what she gets with someone else.