bettyandbob Posted December 23, 2015 Share Posted December 23, 2015 A few years ago, my siblings and I had a conversation regarding presents to children. I also talked to SIL ( dh's sister). At the time the oldest niece was 24. It was her parent who said we should stop presents at age 22. I suggested maybe the year they finish college. Everyone agreed that "launched" adults werent really included in the present exchange with extended family. So, today I let dh know I finished shopping for my side of the family. I did purchase $10 gift cards for the two launched adults. They are from different families. I just wanted to get them something. One of them is halfway across the country and cannot come, so I just wanted to send her something to let her know I'm thinking of her. The other one will have lunch with us and I thought it would be awkward to give him nothing. Dh says I should give them gifts of equal value to their siblings. He also said my siblings were spending more on our kids. I don't think this is a fair comparison because our kids are the youngest and we gave nice presents to all these children before we had kids of our own. Dh also thinks the adult children will compare what we gave them to their siblings and feel slighted. It sounds like I'm getting nitpicky about presents and generousity. I don't want to be. How do you handle nieces and nephews who have launched. Dh says even though the parents discussed this issue, we should give more generous presents to all the dc, adult or not, launched or not. He is especially concerned with not giving the same to children from the same family. But it was clear when my siblings and I talked about it there would be a time when oldest dc wouldn't be gift recipients. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
QueenCat Posted December 23, 2015 Share Posted December 23, 2015 We give until they have kids of their own and then we give to their kids instead. So there is a 26 year old who doesn't have kids and she gets a gift. Her sister is 24 and has a child. The child gets a gift. We all do it the same way, so it's pretty accepted. We used to do it differently but this is simpler. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ottakee Posted December 23, 2015 Share Posted December 23, 2015 Sorry, we don't do gifts for any of the nieces and nephews of any age. 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
catz Posted December 23, 2015 Share Posted December 23, 2015 On my husband's side my kids are the 2 youngest. The young adults done with college that are present at Christmas take part in the adult "game" gift exchange. We each bring 2 $10 gifts and play a dice game so each adult ends up with 2 gifts - some funny, some consumable, some practical. If they miss, they probably just get a card. I think if you've made a decision not to exchnage with adults, I think your DH is being a little silly. We have done some small cute or consumable gifts in circumstances like this. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
marbel Posted December 23, 2015 Share Posted December 23, 2015 (edited) Aren't your siblings going to be angry if you don't follow the agreement you made? Why does your husband want to change the terms of the agreement when it's your family? I feel like I am missing something. As for my family, I stopped giving gifts to nieces and nephews when they stopped acknowledging them. These were gifts mailed, not given in person. I got tired of asking them if they'd gotten the package, or waiting to see if the check cleared. So my criteria was: when they couldn't be bothered to let me know they got the gift. they stopped getting gifts. Different circumstance than you have, I know. ETA: my kids are younger than my siblings' kids by 10 - 20 years. When my nieces and nephews were small, I had disposable income and no kids of my own. So they got nice gifts. When I finally had kids, my siblings were not in great financial shape and/or were putting their own kids through college. Consequently, my kids did not get much in the way of gifts. Oh well, that's the way it worked out. Of course my kids did not know that. But adults can certainly remember that they received gifts when they were young and should not begrudge younger siblings their gifts now! Edited December 23, 2015 by marbel Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SKL Posted December 23, 2015 Share Posted December 23, 2015 In our family, the older nieces/nephews get less than the younger ones. Most of the givers don't give anything to the independent adults, but will give their kids gifts. I am one of the last holdouts as far as giving anything at all to the independent adults. I give the young kids one substantial present (robot toy, laser tag, tinkertoy set...). The teens get a cheaper present (cosmetics this year). The young adult students get a gift card and a small token gift. Other adult nieces/nephews get a small family gift (nut tins this year). Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SKL Posted December 23, 2015 Share Posted December 23, 2015 And my personal capacity for gift giving has changed over the years too. I used to buy multiple gifts for all the kids, but I can't do that now, mainly because I don't have time and there are too many kids whom I barely know. I think it's really enough to acknowledge each person so they know they were thought of. I think a $10 gift card is plenty. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Paige Posted December 23, 2015 Share Posted December 23, 2015 If the money isn't going to kill you, I'd defer to DH and go with generosity. I completely agree with you that you are not obligated to continue to give gifts (and never were), and that your gifting plan was perfectly fine. However, if he wants to be generous, I wouldn't be the one to hold back. It will make your nieces and nephews happy, it will make DH happy, everyone's happy! We'll probably give our nieces and nephews something until they are married and we give about equally (give or take) to all of them regardless of age, but we don't do all of them every year, and each family buys for only one other family. It may be different if we bought for everyone every year. My parents quit giving nieces and nephews gifts at 13. They had to do that because we had an insanely large family! Others in our family gave gifts all the way up until we were all married with kids. It's not a competition. I don't know why anyone would be mad about someone's personal choice of what to give and how much. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
linders Posted December 23, 2015 Share Posted December 23, 2015 We give gifts to nieces, nephews, and children of close family friends until they graduate high school. At that time, we give a generous monetary gift at graduation, and then end things. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
PeacefulChaos Posted December 23, 2015 Share Posted December 23, 2015 We don't give to nieces and nephews, period. I know that probably sounds stingy. But honestly, like our kids, none of them need - or even necessarily want - any more stuff. We stopped buying for everyone several years ago. Now that there are 14 grandkids 15 and under, we're all glad. :lol: 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
J-rap Posted December 23, 2015 Share Posted December 23, 2015 If you and the other adults-your-age (parents of the nieces and nephews) have made that decision, I don't know why you wouldn't stick with it. I assume that the other parents have discussed the decision with their own children. On my side of the family, we all agreed to quit giving gifts to any nieces and nephews regardless of age about three years ago, when the oldest nephew had a child of his own. It was just starting to be too much (as more nieces and nephews were getting married, etc.), and it seemed like a good time to cut back. Otherwise, maybe the nieces and nephews could just do a gift exchange among themselves? This is what we did on my husband's side of the family for a number of years. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Mama Geek Posted December 23, 2015 Share Posted December 23, 2015 It is odd to me that if they are "launched" adults, why are their parents deciding if they get a gift from someone else? Why wouldn't they be treated as adults. As adults my dh and I have some friends that exchange gifts with and some we don't. It makes sense to not give them the gift at the time of the gift exchange when everyone is together. A gift card is a nice token similar to giving someone a bottle of wine. I don't think twice about taking a token gift to someone if I am going to be visiting or if they are a good friend that lives far away. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bettyandbob Posted December 23, 2015 Author Share Posted December 23, 2015 It is odd to me that if they are "launched" adults, why are their parents deciding if they get a gift from someone else? Why wouldn't they be treated as adults. As adults my dh and I have some friends that exchange gifts with and some we don't. It makes sense to not give them the gift at the time of the gift exchange when everyone is together. A gift card is a nice token similar to giving someone a bottle of wine. I don't think twice about taking a token gift to someone if I am going to be visiting or if they are a good friend that lives far away. We had the discussion because we all try to gather at my parents. It seemed awkward to just stop bringing gifts for a person without being clear with eachother why,even though to some people it would be obvious. basically, changing the status quo is hard and aunts and uncles wanted to not have misunderstandings between eachother. Perhaps just going about business and treating adult children as adults is fine, but the parents of children becoming adults wanted to communicate within their own generation. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lolly Posted December 23, 2015 Share Posted December 23, 2015 We stopped doing gifts with nieces and nephews a long time ago. It had gotten ridiculous. We have 4 kids. Everyone else has 2. They would all just send cash or a gift card. It was so lopsided that it made us feel strange. We just did away with it altogether. We also stopped most of the adult exchange. (We now only get a gift for unmarried aunt/uncles.) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pink and Green Mom Posted December 23, 2015 Share Posted December 23, 2015 In our family we always got gifts from aunts/uncles until we graduated high school (mom's side of the family) or college (dad's side). After that we didn't get gifts anymore. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bettyandbob Posted December 23, 2015 Author Share Posted December 23, 2015 In our family we always got gifts from aunts/uncles until we graduated high school (mom's side of the family) or college (dad's side). After that we didn't get gifts anymore. I guess that's the issue. Neither dh nor I have a family history with exchanging presents with extended family. Neither of us saw cousins on holidays. So, the awkwardness comes from no precedent. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pink and Green Mom Posted December 23, 2015 Share Posted December 23, 2015 I guess that's the issue. Neither dh nor I have a family history with exchanging presents with extended family. Neither of us saw cousins on holidays. So, the awkwardness comes from no precedent. I would say then that if you discussed it with your siblings and agreed to a plan, I would follow it. It will be awkward (trust me) for the siblings who follow what you discussed if you show up with gifts. 4 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Carrie12345 Posted December 23, 2015 Share Posted December 23, 2015 On my side, adults always did a Secret Santa with names drawn out of a hat. Grown kids got added to the hat. (I don't think we had an official age.) Once several people moved away and several relationships got complicated, we dropped it all together. But it worked nice for many years. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
TammyS Posted December 23, 2015 Share Posted December 23, 2015 You give presents to whomever you want, based on whatever criteria floats your boat. Period. Adult children should not compare what they get with non-adult children, or anyone else. A gift is freely given and you take what you get with grace, even if an equivalent person (say another one of your adult siblings) gets something much more expensive. That's not your business, because a gift is a gift, not a paid bill. You are owed nothing, so everything more than nothing should be accepted with thanks. The only two criteria that you "must" consult when choosing gifts is: Do I want to give this person this gift? and Can I afford to give this person this gift? FWIW, I only buy presents for my immediate family and my mother. That's it. I quit doing presents for friends/extended family years ago. Too much hassle/expense. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ktgrok Posted December 23, 2015 Share Posted December 23, 2015 Time for a group text/message/etc! "hey, I remember we talked about not doing gifts for kids over age _____ a few years ago. Are we still doing that? Or do we want to wait a few more years, since there are only two in taht category so far?" Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
texasmama Posted December 23, 2015 Share Posted December 23, 2015 We give until they have kids of their own and then we give to their kids instead. So there is a 26 year old who doesn't have kids and she gets a gift. Her sister is 24 and has a child. The child gets a gift. We all do it the same way, so it's pretty accepted. We used to do it differently but this is simpler.This is how it has played out here. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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