Christmas Gifts - Red River,NM

One gift from Santa. This year I am hoping to spend $350 total on my girls, nieces and nephews. We'll see how well I do.

We don't do a "big" gift. We just try to get them some things they need (this year boots, snow pants) and some things they want. I also try to get gifts that they can share (this year a fort building kit and spin art thingy).

We spend about $100 per kid (we have two ages 9 & 6) and Santa gifts are the stocking gifts. So Usually about $20 more per kid.

without even looking at the other responses.....

Christmas & gift giving should be from the heart. It is not a number, nor is it a comparison against others' choices.

We each need to do what suits our family best, both in gift choice & in dollar amount. :) That said, your budget & choices sound great!

I always say I'm going to "cut back" but don't. But last year, I told the kids they were getting FOUR presents each: a want, a need, a wear and a read. They are already trying to figure out what they really want instead of a big list of stuff they like for 5 minutes and never pick it up again. We will still get them something "big" from Santa. Cost wise, it really depends. We have 3 kids but don't spend equal amounts on each. They are all different and like different things, so there is a difference in cost. But we do get them the same number of gifts, including in their stocking. Hope this helps. =)

300 is a lot to spend on a 9 year old... We spend about 100.. my son who just turned 12, really never asks for much.. For his bday, all he really wanted was a cookbook... This Christmas, we will get him some clothes (which he didn't ask for :) and something else... he'll probably look on Amazon and choose a book..
Otherwise, the years of us over-spending are over. I did that for a long time... now, since being in two 12 step programs.. I realized I had a compulsion to over-buy... don't let the holidays rule your pocket book....
stay on budget..
I should also add that he will get money from his grandmother and another gift from his cousins. Otherwise, it's not overboard..

We do what we feel like each year and it varies each year. I try to make sure the two oldest have the same number and the youngest is too young yet to notice. I don't worry about spending the same amount on them.

With one kid, it's hard to resist getting her things I know will tickle her, just because she never asks for anything -- which makes me inclined to want to give her more! I don't set a dollar amount for a "big" gift etc. Now that she is 12 I'd say we usually do one gift from me, one from her dad, and maybe four from Santa; honestly it depends on what Santa found that was great that year. I will note that her birthday is about seven weeks after Christmas so many times I get things in the fall and figure they are either Christmas OR birthday and I hold things back for the birthday pretty readily, especially if I know in advance that my brother is going to give her something big that year; that's one reason why he confers with me on her gifts. If I know he's giving her something big I might get something smaller and less expensive to go along with that gift (like a case the year he gave her a Nook, after he talked with us about whether it was OK to give her one --yeah, he's good at checking with us and it helps).

The rest of our family is mostly overseas so the gifts from them are small (since they like to mail them!). Usually those gifts are all books!

I'm not a fan of caring what others do. I think it is important to do what is right for your family, for your budget and kids. Kids don't add up the cost of things either - they will notice if they get wildly different presents and are of roughly the same age, but only amounts and size, not cost of presents. Some people may scoff at the budget or amount of gifts you're purchasing (we tend to do a lot), but then they have a lot of relatives also giving (which they don't happen to mention), and we do not. We don't have grandparents or aunts and uncles sending gifts, so anything our kids get comes from us. And we don't send presents to anyone, so we have the budget to focus on our kids. You do what you think is right, and don't worry about others.

My kids get 3 gifts from Santa, to echo the 3 gifts from the wisemen, and they know the story behind it of course.

From us, they will get a few things under the tree, but not much. Their gift from us is a surprise trip somewhere. Some years are big like a cruise, and others are not so big, but still away from home and exciting.

We still spend WAY too mcuh $ on Christmas, but it's okay. The kids are limited to $150 for the birthdays, but Christmas is huge.

We used to pass out all the gifts Christmas morning and take turns opening them so I always used to try to get the kids the same amount of presents for opening, because it was very obvious if I child was done and the others still had a mound of packages to open. We did try to equalize gifts based on the regular cost of the items. I didn't take into account if I had gotten something on sale.

Sigh. Is it that time of the year again?

We can get away with getting 1 big present. Usually the most expensive (but reasonable) gift on his list and maybe an accessory for it. My family of 2 sets of grands, 9 aunts and uncles, 20 1st cousins and 8 2nd cousins takes care of the rest of the presents under the tree.

Santa isn't getting him anything right now but who knows what may transpire once all these awesome sales hit.

We do about what you do. Our boys are 9 and 15 (turning 16 right after Christmas).

*We don't worry too much about the cost being the same for the boys. Some years we spend more on one, and some years more on the other. I do see to it that they get the same number of packages to open. This year they are getting five each from us, and one from Santa. Our youngest probably doesn't believe in Santa anymore, but he hasn't made that common knowledge. ;) We all get stocking stuffers, too, but those are very small gifts.

I agree $300 is a lot on a child for me. My parents did the usual pj, board games, but there was always a surprise that I had no idea. They were extremely blue collar and could stretch dollars quite well.

I have three children. They will get a stocking from Father Christmas each, a big present from mum and dad, and one or two presents from Father Christmas under the tree. I wrap up some of their stocking presents and out tags on them from other characters such as 'the bookworms', 'the pirates', 'Rudolph' etc. I will spend around $100 each.

My boys usually get one large gift from Santa each year. One year they got a Wii to share with a game for each, one year they each got DS's, one year they got the PS3, with a game for each. Last year it was an Xbox 360 to share and a game for each of them. I usually cash in some credit card points to go towards the Santa gift. From us they get lots of small, mostly practical gifts, such as a new pair of pj's, books, socks, underwear, clothes and maybe a small Lego.

my kids are 10, 7, and 4. I wouldn't be comfortable myself with that big of a discrepancy in what I spent unless it was something like a baby and a much older child. I spent about $220ish on each of mine this year(yes, i'm already done and everything is wrapped). they each got a santa gift of about $75ish, the 4yo got lucky b/c I got her American girl doll with extra outfit and accessories on jill's steals and deals a few weeks back for $60 rather than $190 :) the older boys are sharing a $150 larger santa gift that they can both enjoy alone and/or together, it will go in our playroom. lots of other AG doll stuff for the 4yo's other AG dolls, plus books/legos/video games for the boys. oh, I didn't figure in the cost of their traditional xmas eve pjs... now there, I don't try to be "equal" on price, I just get them each a xmas themed pj or just pjs that they will really like. this year, 4yo had most expensive at $60 from AG, 10yo got NFL pjs on sale at kohl's for $18, 7yo got elf on the shelf pjs from pottery barn kids for $40ish with shipping. that's just the way the cookie crumbled this year. I have no clue if they have the same number of gifts, and God help them if they count gifts and whine... they've never done it before, so I don't see it starting now.

We usually do about $100 per kids from santa. I used to get them a lot of clothes from us but then they got clothes from everyone else too and we almost didnt have the room for it. Last year I bought them each 2 outfits and requisite pj's for christmas eve. When they didnt get clothes from others I bought them some more at the after christmas sales. From santa they got a few books and dvds and an ez fort that was already set up. Each daughter got a box (think the lg boxes reams of paper come in) each box had about 20 ballons in it and each balloon had $1 in it. We were going on a cruise and the girls were going to be saving up their own money to purchase their own souvineers. It was great. Then grandma and grandpa came over and blew santa out of the water. My kids REALLY dont need ANYTHING this year. I am chilling out to see what they get from everyone else and then I will supplement (like I did last year with the clothes). from santa they are going to get a barbie house and some books.

Through out the years, on average my kids have gotten about 3 gifts from us, and 20 from Santa, plus stockings. Some years I've spent only
$300 per girl and other years $1,500 per girl. (One year they got laptops, another year they both got a instrument)

I don't think there is a "norm". For everyone it's different.