Do you buy birthday presents for your nieces and nephews?
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Anonymous
| My brother died a few years ago, and I have no other siblings, so our only nieces and nephews are my SIL's kids. They're all older than our kids (4 kids, ages 6 through 15). SIL is my husband's only sibling, she is older than him and they are not close (no sort of falling out, just never had anything in common). We live about an hour away. Ever since he and I started dating (so before we had kids), we've gotten the nieces and nephews Christmas and birthday presents (he used to get them presents before we started dating, and I just kind of took over doing it since that's more up my alley than his). My SIL has sporadically gotten presents for our kids, and rarely responds to any texts from me asking what her kids might want (I usually just ask my MIL, with whom I have a very good relationship, and I ask the two older kids themselves but don't see the younger ones enough to ask them in person ahead of their birthday). I'm just wondering how many people get birthday (and/or Christmas) presents for their nieces and nephews every year? Are they big gifts or little tokens? If no presents, do you just send cards? Do you ask for input about what the kids want? Are your gifts reciprocated? Just curious about how others handle this. |
Anonymous
| In your case, I'd keep going till each child is 18 or if after that stops acknowledging. I'd do something simple like a Target gift card. SIL may be overwhelmed. |
Anonymous
| Yes, but only if there is a birthday party. They are all very young. Once they are beyond party age I just hope I can remember the dates and send them cards maybe with a few dollars. |
Anonymous
| We put money in their 529s, which we established for them. They get enough presents from others. We cleared this with my SIL and BIL before starting it. |
Anonymous
OP here. Interesting. We have never been invited to a birthday party except one year when one of the nieces went to the American Girl store for lunch and wanted me to come with her (since I had been letting her play with my American Girl doll). |
Anonymous
|
Yes, we do. Its nice for the kids to know they have family out there that care about them. Usually around $20. I assume I would do it even if they didn't reciprocate. Though I did stop getting my cousin's kids gifts because she was stressed out by having to reciprocate and it seemed to become more of a negative thing. But those aren't my nieces/nephews.
If you have the $, it seems erring on the side of generosity can't be bad. |
Anonymous
| Well, we adopted our niece, so yes, but it's not how you mean. If we had "real" nieces and nephews we would. |
Anonymous
| We do- it fosters the relationship. But we don't spend a lot - usually $20 or less. |
Anonymous
| We only have two nephews, and yes, we buy them birthday and Xmas gifts every year. Prob spend $30 on each gift, so $120/year. We'll prob stop after they turn 18. |
Anonymous
| Our only niece and nephew live in another country and we only see them once a year. We do exchange gifts (my BIL and SIL give gifts to our kids and we give gifts to their kids) when we see them. For holidays and birthdays, we just send a card. We used to send gifts at Christmas and their bdays too but stopped bc It's too expensive to send packages to them (the last time I did, I paid over $60 in shipping and the gifts themselves cost less than that!). But if they lived here I would get them gifts for every occasion bc I enjoy doing it. |
Anonymous
| Yes. The size of the gift varies. |
Anonymous
| normally $30ish each |
Anonymous
| OP here. Interesting that so many people spend around $30 - I had a hard time finding something for that for the older kids. They love Under Armour clothes (and can wear them to school), but their parents don't get them for them so my MIL had said that's a good gift for us to get. The oldest wears an adult L, so just a t-shirt from there is $25, and I usually feel like I need to get shorts to go with it but maybe that's my problem. Anyway, I don't have a problem spending closer to $50 for them, and I certainly know the dollar value won't be reciprocated from my SIL and that's fine. |
Anonymous
| I was in the same boat as OP and after a while, I stopped buying gifts. In 15 years of our marriage, my kids never got as much as a postcard from their only aunt. A simple phone call would suffice. Some people are just rude. |
Anonymous
| We have one nephew and we do buy birthday presents for him. I actually just bought him one today. His bday is next month. |