Hoping you can help me with a situation I'm finding awkward!
I have a 7y/o DS. A year before he was born my husband and I moved out of the UK to an EU country. We are still close to friends and family in the UK. Many of these also have similarly aged children, whom we enjoy seeing when we can although it's often years between meetings. (We do keep up with their parents regularly by WhatsApp/phone).
These children naturally have birthdays. Here is where my awkwardness arises! We started off sending presents for all the children, but as the kids kept multiplying I quickly couldn't keep up (being organised with dates is really not my forte, plus we don't have as much money as others in the group). I also don't expect any presents for my child on his birthday. He gets presents from close family and that's easily enough. He already has far too much stuff to be honest! My ideal would be that we bought presents only for nephews/nieces, and all other children get a card or maybe a video message on their birthday.
However, in my group of school friends, one friend (Grace) always sends lovely personalised presents for my son (and I think for the other children of the group). Other people don't send things, which I'm fine with. It's the birthday of Grace's son soon, and I feel I should reciprocate the present, but another one of our close friends Sarah has a daughter with exactly the same birthday, and I wasn't going to buy her anything, ie match the energy that they did for my son.
If this sounds a bit tit-for-tat that's not my intention! I am in no way upset with Sarah, actually I'm more relieved that I don't feel the pressure to get something. When the present from Grace came it made me feel a bit ashamed because I know I'm not anywhere near that thoughtful.
I could try to bring it up and suggest none of us do presents, but I think Grace would be upset because she really gets pleasure out of buying them and it would seem that we were ungrateful.
Is it OK to buy presents for one kid and not the other? (it might come up, either posted on a group chat or because Sarah and Grace are very close and might talk about it). Should I buy for both (but that's just propagating something which I'd rather stop). And then there's about 4 other birthdays coming up in the next few months so would I have to start to buy for everyone? I honestly just don't have the headspace 🫨. It doesn't help that I don't really know most of these kids well at all, some I've only met once or twice, so buying presents is doubly difficult.
What do you do in these kind of situations?
Thanks!