I realize that some people come from large families and might have a lot of nieces and nephews, and then there are people who might only have one or two. What do you typically do for birthdays and Christmas? Do you give presents?
I realize that some people come from large families and might have a lot of nieces and nephews, and then there are people who might only have one or two. What do you typically do for birthdays and Christmas? Do you give presents?
104 votes
cantaloupe / 6206 posts
I will some day when I have them! I will likely have 2 max - one brother is CBC, other brother is TTC, my DH's siblings aren't married yet. It would probably be different if I had a LOT of them.
pineapple / 12793 posts
DH has 18 nieces and nephews and 12 great nieces and nephews. That I remember their names is enough.
wonderful pomelo / 30692 posts
We only have two nieces and nephews! We do gifts for Christmas and birthdays.
watermelon / 14467 posts
I have a niece and nephew. I don't know if my sister will ever have children, but if so it will likely be awhile. We get them Christmas presents only.
hostess / wonderful persimmon / 25556 posts
My nephews get gifts. My husband's nephews get money.
pear / 1998 posts
We have 8 nieces and nephews and we do get them Christmas and Birthday presents. For the five in town, we started doing "Day of Fun' with them, where we take them out individually with just me and DH and do whatever they want to do.
grapefruit / 4028 posts
We only have two nieces (DHs side), and we buy them presents for birthdays and Christmas. Occasionally we'll get things for other holidays too, but that's more random.
grapefruit / 4988 posts
I have one niece and one nephew and we always give them presents.
Growing up, I had 16 cousins on one side and no one gave presents to nieces/nephews.
pear / 1657 posts
I don't have a niece or nephew yet (I only have one sibling and DH is an only) - I will definitely buy him or her presents! We also buy Christmas gifts for DH's cousins kids (there are 4 of them) because DH and his cousins grew up like brothers.
GOLD / wonderful apricot / 22646 posts
i only have one brother who doesn't have kids yet but I consider my BfFs kids my nieces and buy them gifts always for birthdays and sometimes for other occasions if we get together around the holidays.
pomelo / 5607 posts
Just one niece, so we get her stuff. Once my siblings are old enough to have kids, and DH's brothers maybe have some it could get to be too many to do a ton.
pomegranate / 3275 posts
@TemperanceBrennan: That's brilliant! I would love to do that with mine, but we live far away. I know my kids would prefer an experience, rather than a gift.
We buy our nephews (we only have two), birthday gifts and Christmas presents. However, my brother and SIL (my nephews parents) have forgotten my children's birthdays pretty frequently. I would say of my daughter's five birthdays, she's gotten about three gifts, of my son's three birthdays, maybe two gifts, of my other son's ONE birthday he has received zero gifts (who forgets a first birthday! even if it is a third born!!!). I've gotten over it. I just hope my kids don't notice.
pear / 1809 posts
I don't have a niece or a nephew yet, but I like the idea of giving them a gift for Christmas and birthdays. I'm an only child, but my husband has two brothers. One brother gives our son gifts, and the other brother doesn't. Would that influence what you do with their children? I know you shouldn't give gifts to receive gifts, but it seems like as my child gets older, he'll become more aware of who is giving him what.
GOLD / wonderful pea / 17697 posts
For D's side we give presents to the boys for Christmas (there are 4 nephews) and cards for their birthdays (usually with like $10 or something).
GOLD / wonderful olive / 19030 posts
Yes, I always get them a birthday present and on DH's side we do Christmas presents (only 2.) On my side the kids draw names since there is now 6 of them, we decided one big/nice gift is better than 4 smaller gifts.
eggplant / 11716 posts
I have 7 nieces and nephews who range in age from 7-27. I became an aunt at the age of 6, so I was too young to ever buy gifts for the older ones--and now they are adults, so it seems weird to send someone 6 years younger than me a gift for a birthday or something.
I would 100% do gifts for big life occasions though--of course!--like weddings, graduations, etc.
The younger neice and nephew I'm more of a traditional aunt to--but they live far away. So I only do gifts if I'm going to see them near a gifting holiday--Christmas or their birthday. I don't send a gift if I'm not going to be there for an event/ <-------bad aunt. I don't expenct my siblings to send my LOs gifts either though (and they don't!). No hard feelings, that's just how my family is.
On DHs side, he just has 1 niece and nephew, and they are younger (4 and 6), so we tend to do more gifts. At the very least, we call on their birthdays and bring a gift the next time we see them. We also do a lot more "just because" presents.
hostess / wonderful watermelon / 39513 posts
Yes, we have one young niece and we buy her gifts for her birthday and Christmas.
persimmon / 1196 posts
Since we moved and don't see her as much, I've been sending my niece care packages a few times a year (beginning of school, Valentine's Day . . . whenever I think of it). I usually send a piece of candy, stickers, a coloring or activity book, that kind of thing.
If we are going to see her close to her birthday or Christmas, then we do take her a present. Her little brother is only six months old. Unless I see something I just have to buy, I don't worry too much about gifts until they are old enough to know what's going on.
wonderful pear / 26210 posts
On my side of the family, there's one nephew, he gets a gift at Christmas and his birthday.
On my husband's side, there are 3. My husband gifts only to his godson. This is how they do it, even though the three are siblings.
wonderful grape / 20453 posts
We always do gifts but I have one niece, one nephew, and one second cousin to buy for
grapefruit / 4321 posts
Yup. I have one niece from my brother and one nephew from my SIL and we do bday and Christmas presents. The max total I'll ever have is 5 (with 4 being more likely) so it's not like we'll ever have to buy gifts for 15 kids.
GOLD / wonderful coconut / 33402 posts
4 nephews and yes, we always buy Christmas and birthday gifts. If I see something at the store for my nephews, I will buy it just because I want too. I would for DH's nephews but we just don't see them as much.
pomegranate / 3779 posts
5 nieces and nephews on my side. I buy all of them Christmas presents, but only the 2 that live near me birthday presents. I do pretty awesome Easter baskets for the 3 that don't live near me because I can send them all at once - keeping up with all the individual birthdays was too hard especially because I only see those 3 once per year.
pomegranate / 3858 posts
I only have two nieces and one nephew, so yes, we do gifts. We also gift at Christmas to DH's cousin's two kids who are in a bad situation.
persimmon / 1071 posts
@aprild: I don't send birthday presents, but I always give them a Christmas gift. It's hard because they live 2 provinces away and we only see them maybe 1 or 2 a year. Plus we don't keep in regular contact, maybe a phone call every month or so.
I'm sure if we lived closer to them and I was able to actually get to know the kids it would be a different story.
hostess / wonderful apple seed / 16729 posts
My family has always had a understanding that we give gifts at Christmas to the kids first and if we all agree we might do a polyanna for the adults. There have been years where one sibling struggled financially, so it was agreed that Christmas gifts for adults were not necessary.
As for birthdays, we focus on the kids, as well. For the adults, I might send them a card if I get the chance.
I love that my budget for Christmas and birthday presents is much lower because I don't have to figure out presents for the adults.
DH's family is (was) the opposite. They got gifts for immediate family members and birthday are pretty big and acknowledged. Last year, I heard they were discussing switching to something like my family does since many of us younger folks are getting married and having kids.
Oh, now that I'm pregnant with twins, they will be #7 & 8 on my side of the family. So I have to buy for 6 nieces and nephews.
As for DH's family, we will be the first one with kids. DH's brother does not have any kids and will probably be a few years before that happens. DH's family does include some close cousins, uncles and aunts when Christmas comes around.
wonderful olive / 19353 posts
We only have 1 nephew, but we "adopt" all our friends' kiddos as our nieces and nephews also. Come Christmas time, we have about 20+ kids to buy presents for. Ouch!
persimmon / 1188 posts
We only have two nephews and we always give them gifts. We're very close to them so it makes sense. If we had a bunch of kids in the family I would scale it back a little. I usually buy my younger nephew something my son has or I see something I like and just buy 2!
cantaloupe / 6630 posts
We have 11 nieces and nephews, two on the way and two step nieces/nephews. It's a lot of gifts and we live overseas but we do try to get each one a gift for birthdays and Christmas.
pear / 1770 posts
My husband is estranged from his brother, so we don't send any presents/cards to our niece, even though I would like to. If/when my brother has kids, I look forward to spoiling them!
honeydew / 7622 posts
Each of us has one sibling and they each have two children so 3 nephews and 1 niece. For their birthdays we do a small gift $15-30 and I usually just send everyone their next size in black Converse for Christmas. Works for us.
blogger / eggplant / 11551 posts
Yes - I only have one nephew... so that makes it easy to buy for every birthday and Christmas. Don't know what we would do if we had a lot more!
watermelon / 14206 posts
I only have 2 nieces. I love buying gifts for them! I send gifts for birthdays and holidays.
grapefruit / 4819 posts
@oliviaoblivia: Woah! Remembering their names is enough of a challenge, much less trying to remember birthdays and organise cards and gifts!
We have two nieces and four nephews so yes, we send cards and gifts, although we do vary amount we spend on each.
persimmon / 1043 posts
Yes-- I love to gift them! And my sis/BIL are always generous with my kids as well.
grapefruit / 4442 posts
2 nieces and 3 nephews on my side of the family. We celebrate the holidays with them so we exchange gifts for the kids. Sometimes its toys, sometimes its money
cantaloupe / 6634 posts
Absolutely! But I only have two nieces and two nephews. I usually take each kid to Target and let them pick out a gift and get ice cream. Since I knew I would have a newborn this year, I did a group gift of a huge set of magnatiles. For Christmas, I get each of them a gift but usually keep it under 20 bucks a piece.
coconut / 8079 posts
My sis has two kids and so does DH's sis. We have always bought them something for birthdays and Christmas.
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