One or two. Sometimes the gift is tickets to something + spending the night at my house (really a gift for the parents). This year, the oldest is getting a trip to see The Nutcracker. The next oldest is getting a book + GC to Gamestop. Same for the next. Baby will probably get two board books.

OP - have you ever expressed to your sibling how much his/her contributions to your childhood Christmases meant to you? That would probably be really well received. If it were me, I would express this and your wish to pay it forward by doing something special for your neices and nephews through some sort of recurring family experiences (weekend overnight, gingerbread houses, Christmas Eve pizza making party, something creative), this would be recognizing that the neices and nephews already have plenty of stuff and what you are looking to replicate is the specialness and caring you experienced.

Pp here, another idea is to have them over to decorate a gingerbread house they can take home with them. Again it's your time and some candy your paying for and your sister gets a date night or whatever. Or have them over to bake Christmas cookies and watch a movie. You don't have to give them something to unwrap.

Instead of gifts can you take the kids out to do something like zoo lights and treats, ice skating and treats, or some other holiday thing, or even s movie they want to see? That might be better than trinkets and they get the gift of your time and you can spend less by lumping then ask together.

Anonymous wrote:we don't buy nieces and nephews Christmas presents, through mutual agreement with our siblings. It's pointless. They have tons of stuff; we don't need to buy them more crap.

This. When I visit I sometimes bring a random gift, which is much more fun than a Christmas gift when they get 50 presents that day.

If you MUST give them something, one small $5 gift should do it.

Anonymous wrote:We've started having all the kids pick the name of one cousin to buy for. None of our kids wants for anything and need very little so this keeps it fun for them and helps teach them the joy of picking out a present for a loved one.
The adults each pick a name too and only by for one couple (we're all married with kids). It is fun and so glad we started doing this a few years ago.

We do this too! We have 14 nieces and nephews, so it started getting ridiculous.

We've started having all the kids pick the name of one cousin to buy for. None of our kids wants for anything and need very little so this keeps it fun for them and helps teach them the joy of picking out a present for a loved one.
The adults each pick a name too and only by for one couple (we're all married with kids). It is fun and so glad we started doing this a few years ago.

We have 2 nephews and a niece who we never see around Xmas/Hannukah and we don't get them anything--my SIL and I agreed a few years back that it was just too much.

We have 1 nephew and 1 niece we see every year and are getting them each a couple of small things, totaling around $10-15 per kid (mostly through finding some great deals). Even with that gift exchange it gets to be a lot and with that SIL we agreed we'd just let each kid pick a name for next year and get a gift for that child.

I usually do 1 big toy gift (under $40) and a book (under $5 on sale) for my nephew (1.5 year old)

It's not your job to provide extras for your nieces/nephews just because your childhood was different. It's really for the parents to determine that especially since it sounds like your sibling and their spouse does just fine for the kids. You don't "owe" repayment to your sibling for generous gifts you received as a kid. It's just very nice that your sibling was able to give you a special holiday when your mom couldn't.

Don't play keeping up with the Jones when you have a budget and a baby. If your sibling didn't make as much and their child(ren) were lacking then yes, I understand the desire to provide back what was given to you, but that isn't the case here.

It's ok.

I have 12 nieces and nephews, so one small gift each.

We do one gift each.

I have 9 nieces and nephews. I also go by budget vs. number of gifts. My budget is $15/each for Christmas and $20/each for birthdays. Some of them have birthdays close to Christmas, so occasionally I'll combine his/her birthday and Christmas budgets to get them one larger gift.

We all agreed to only get the nieces/nephews gifts for their birthdays, not Christmas. That way everyone's birthday was special. I found this has worked out well...I don't have to stress about what to get a bunch of kids at the holidays, and my son doesn't end up with a ton of toys that make the noise.

One gift each!