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Angel Tree gift question -- what is going on with the gifts?
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Anonymous
| Last year, I gave two Kindle devices as presents for kids in my Angel Tree. Now, since I had purchased them, I received a notification when the Kindles were first activated -- not on Xmas morning mind you, but several months later. Like, the following October for one, and August for the other. Curious about what is going on -- do you think the parents (or other people?) are selling these gifts or something, rather than giving the devices to kids in need? |
Anonymous
| Its impossible to say. maybe they saved the for birthdays. |
Anonymous
| If it is a Paperwhite and not a First, you can download books from the library and other free books to it without ever getting an Amazon account or activating it |
Anonymous
|
Gift requests are getting expensive!
The problem I see sometime is that these families have better cell phone and plans than me! |
Anonymous
| We don't do Angel Tree anymore. The gift requests have become ridiculous, and frankly, entitled. We donate and give to Toys for Tots. I'm not interested in buying an iPad for a 12 year old. |
Anonymous
They do. I'm amazed at my students' phones at my Title One school. By middle school all of them have better phones than I do. I always buy books for the Angel Tree along with the toy. I don't buy electronics. |
Anonymous
Yeah, I would think they probably sold it for cash. It was probably one of the things they had of value. I think anytime you give these kind of expensive gifts you have to assume that they will get sold eventually. Families with multiple kids likely receive multiple devices so I can't fault the parents because they probably need the cash to cover expenses. |
Anonymous
|
How old were the kids?
I know my niece got a tablet as a gift and her parents didn't fully activate it until nearly a year later when she was older. She could still read books and play games through the Google Play store instead of linking it up to their Amazon account. Maybe that happened here? My Angel Tree kids wishes are: iPad Pro, Apple Pen, iPhone 8, hover board, drone, and gift cards. They are 8 and 10, a boy and girl. I think this may be my last year with doing Angel Tree. All of my friends who do it have similar items on their lists from the kids they were given/chosen. My nieces and nephews who are ages 8-11 don't even have any of those items on their lists other than the hover board, which was all the rage like 2 years ago. |
Anonymous
Pay as you go and jailbroken phones are cheap. |
Anonymous
Chances are there is no internet or laptops at home. So they use the phone, on a data plan (or using free wi-fi) in place of that. Careful before you judge. |
Anonymous
| We moved out of the area this year and I was so happy when I saw the tags on the Angle Tree here. They asked for things like umbrellas, stuffed toys, books and board games. The big ticket items were an upright vacuum and a new release DVD. |
Anonymous
| DH planned to grab a tag from the Angel Tree at his office. When he looked at the tags, he literally could not find something with a gift under $200. That is insane. |
Anonymous
| Never doing an angel tree again, when our company delivered the gifts, the people were already living pretty large. |
Anonymous
| Honestly, why is it our place to judge what these kids want? I saw plenty of angel tree tags for things like art supplies, play kitchen toys, and board books alongside things like xbox headphones, gift cards, and drones. For older kids - presumably they see the things that other kids their age are getting and they want them, too. I don't fault them for that! It's a Christmas WISH. I bought the Xbox headphones and I deal with policing my own kids' wish lists. |
Anonymous
This is exactly how I feel. And I am not a fan of the "EVEN my kids don't have those things" sentiment. I get that you (general) are saying that you wouldn't buy that stuff for your kids, but it sounds like somehow, these poor kids are less deserving of a luxury charity gift. Like they should know their place and ask for a Jacob's ladder when all the kids around them have the cool stuff  Further, I might buy a wish list item for a kid that I wouldn't buy for my own kid because charity and generosity for others is the spirit of the season and I want to model delayed gratification and kindness to my kid.
But really, I imagine many of your kids are just like mine: they have small wish lists with smaller things because they ALREADY have the big stuff or grandparents/allowances/savings let them acquire that stuff. If you can't afford it spiritually (or monetarily), then just don't pick a tag and be quiet about it. All your grousing makes you (general) seem like a grinchy and mean spirited. And a little elitist. |