Joint birthday party and present etiquette

[dazedandblue]

This is the first time DC5 has been invited to a joint birthday party., so this is new to us.

Both kids are in his year group. One child he clearly has a friendship with (they talk about each other all the time, spend time together in school, and DS invited this child to his birthday party).

The other child is in their year group, but I've never heard mention of him before from DS. From what I've understood, they just don't really hang out and generally play with other people in school. Totally normal.

What is the present etiquette here?
I obviously don't want to make any child feel sad for not getting a present, and they're only 5 years old. However, clearly DS has been invited due to his friendship with one of the kids, and it was this child's mum who invited us directly.

My current thought was to get the same present for each child (as in, an individual one for each of them... not to share) and base it on what I know about DS's friend and likes.

What would you do? What is the etiquette here?

Id buy each a gift, but something generic (and likely cheaper) for the child i dont know

@dazedandblue depends on the dynamics, if my child is invited by both and is good friends with both, then i would buy presents for both, if they have been invited by one child and does not know the other, i would only buy for the one child that was the friend.

I have twins, any party invite is clearly either to x from a, or to y from k. One child only has invited, I always try to make that clear. There's been the odd time someone has bought the other twin a token gift but not a lot. It's really not needed to get the other child a gift, if the invite has specifically came from one of the boys.

Last year was our last year for parties until the big grown up teen ones and Dd got a multipack of haribos from ds's friend and she was bloody delighted! It's the simple things in life eh

The general etiquette at this age is whole class parties, because their friendship groups aren’t fully established just yet. Therefore, even if not a joint party, it’s likely your DS would have been invited to this child’s party, so you’d get the child whatever you’d get them ordinarily.

If the joint party was with a child you don’t know, then fair enough not to get a gift, but given they’re all in the same class, it would be odd not to buy for them both (I know you are saying you will).

I buy the same gift for both, or put £10 each in a card.

You give both kids a present