Nieces and nephews holiday gifts

[pb4uski]

Ok, so here is the big decision of the day.

I have nine nieces and nephews. Over the past few years, I have resorted to sending them each a check for Christmas rather than one for their birthday and another for Christmas as that makes it easier for me and less likely to forget their birthdays, which I was prone to do.

I'm not at all sure if my sisters still do anything for DD or DS in terms of birthday and Christmas gifts (actually, I think that one of my sisters.. who is single... sends them checks) but what they do with my kids isn't important to me in deciding.

I'm considering continuing the Christmas check tradition for each of them until they turn 30 and then just a Christmas card. It's not the money... its just I don't see it makes sense for me to send checks to 30-40 year old nieces and nephews when I'm in my 70s.

On DW's side, she no longer gifts to her adult nieces and nephews other than token gifts (like a card and a tin of home-made chex mix or pickles or something like that) but does gift to her younger nieces and nephews and her great-nieces and nephews.

What do you do with your young adult nieces and nephews?

 

[ivinsfan]

Ok, so here is the big decision of the day.

I have nine nieces and nephews. Over the past few years, I have resorted to sending them each a check for Christmas rather than one for their birthday and another for Christmas as that makes it easier for me and less likely to forget their birthdays, which I was prone to do.

I'm not at all sure if my sisters still do anything for DD or DS in terms of birthday and Christmas gifts (actually, I think that one of my sisters.. who is single... sends them checks) but what they do with my kids isn't important to me in deciding.

I'm considering continuing the Christmas check tradition for each of them until they turn 30 and then just a Christmas card. It's not the money... its just I don't see it make sense for me to send checks to 30-40 year old nieces and nephews when I'm in my 70s.

On DW's side, she no longer gifts to her nieces and nephews other than token gifts (like a card and a tin of home-made chex mix or pickles or something like that).

What do you do with your young adult nieces and nephews?

Birthdays and Christmas gifts until they turned 18 and graduated from high school. A nice check for a graduation gift and then nothing until the weddings/showers started. Also tried to get to every big event and holiday get together they attended and spend time talking to them personally and asking how they were doing and what was going on, offering encouragement if necessary or just plain support.

 

[Ian S]

We switched to giving to great-nieces and great-nephews.

 

[Spudd]

I don't have any nieces/nephews of that age, but my aunts/uncles sent me gifts until I was 18 and nothing since. One set still sends cards but I don't hear from the rest. Of course they all sent gifts for my wedding.

I plan to follow the same strategy with mine.

 

[2017ish]

Answer to this is going to be so extended-family dependent...

We've never given regular gifts to nieces/nephews (13 total, ranging from 7 to 30 years old right now), even though we see them for a week nearly every year. Don't believe we ever sent birthday cards. HS graduation gift to our niece-goddaughter and, feeling guilty otherwise, a smaller one to her brother two years later. In some cases, not all, we've given investment books to niece/nephew upon college graduation; depends upon how close we are to them.

classic area for YMMV.

 

[easysurfer]

I just finished ALL my holiday shopping. Didn't even have to set foot outside. Did all my shopping in that place called Amazon .

to get some ideas at Amazon's search box I put is a search on "present for <fill in the blank>" and that returned some ideas.

 

[Dash man]

No nieces or nephews on my side, but many in DW's side. Typically only gave gifts to the youngsters, but may continue give some to those that stay closer to us for a while.


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[LauAnn]

I only have two nieces. No kids of my own. Both girls are in their mid-twenties. I continue to give them $40 each Christmas. Nothing for birthdays. I will likely continue to continue giving for the foreseeable future.

 

[Car-Guy]

Sent $100 checks for birthdays and Christmas until they were 18. After that, it's just birthday and Christmas cards.

 

[Cobra9777]

We have 10 nieces/nephews. We stopped sending Christmas and birthday checks when they hit high school. We always sent graduation gifts or checks (high school and college). And now we send baby gifts when they have kids. That's it. Once they moved out of their parent's house, it was near impossible to keep track of current physical addresses. I think there's only 2 or 3 that we exchange Christmas cards with. We all stay in touch much more effectively on Facebook, especially for birthdays. Our gifts to each other consist of photos and goofy comments.

 

[txtig]

We've got 8 nieces/nephews on DW's side. She still buys Christmas presents for all of them every year. On my side, there are 19 cousins (including my two kids), aged 17-38. We typically get the extended family together every year at Christmas and the cousins have a gift exchange where they buy one present for one cousin (they pull names ahead of time). They open them one by one and have a great time. We've been doing this since they were youngsters and I think they all still look forward to it. Many are getting far flung across the country, but most years they all make it back to the hometown to participate. And, now were starting to amass a pretty good size group of babies and toddlers, as the next generation arrives. So far, DW loves to buy presents for all of them.

 

[Sunset]

Heck I was thinking of cutting out our DD's once they hit 30.

We don't have any nieces/nephews.

 

[Sea Kayaker]

I admit to going a bit overboard on the gifts for the nieces and nephews. Yet, not having kids of our own, I know I am WAAAAAAAAY ahead of the game in terms of "kid costs"...so I am likely going to SPOIL them silly again this year. Added bonus, many of the things I buy my nephews are things I enjoy playing with too...

 

[karen1972]

My rule of thumb is until they were 18, then graduations/wedding/ and then started again with great niece/nephew who are the same age as all the rest of my niece/nephews.

During the 2008 crash, I stockpiled Mcdonalds stock. On paper each year as their Christmas present I allocate them share. They get the dividends each year as cash to spend... I keep the stocks in my fund. When they turn 18, I can then transfer the shares or cash out for college, car, etc...however, I've been hinting over and over again.. that by the time they get to be 18, they will have way more than $50/year in dividends they could get for the rest of their life..so their gift could just keep giving forever.. OR they can blow it all and then that's it..no further gifts...we shall see how that goes.

 

[brett]

We stopped when they were 16 or so. We have 15 or so of them (I lost count) and they all live thousands of miles away. We have little or no contact. Wedding presents are the only thing we buy now.

 

[growing_older]

I have been rolling them off the gift lists as they leave high school. My youngest sister still has several at home, so I indulge them long distance, but the older nieces and nephews of my other siblings are too old and likewise my kids stopped receiving gifts from their Aunts and Uncles as they aged out. As young adults, they can all buy whatever they want, and likely have a much better idea of their preferences than the older generation anyway.

 

[donheff]

I used to give presents to my seven nieces and nephews who lived near me and who I saw on a weekly basis. I stopped when they left for college. About ten years ago DW and I consulted with our siblings and stopped giving presents to each other, so now no siblings and no nephews and nieces. It had become too much of PITA - we were giving each other gift cards. Ridiculous. Now we give gifts to our kids and grandkids.

 

[Lucantes]

Have a nephew who is 3 (Lil' Sis's son), only see him once a year but he gets Birthday and Christmas pressies and will for many years to come!
Have a newish (got them 3.5 years ago) UK niece and nephew by marriage who are in late 20's and early 30's and they both get Birthday and Christmas pressies also as they are my wife's only ones (and I am okay with that too!).

 

[LOL!]

I have young adult children (think college students). They always want cash, food, cash, food, and gift cards to buy food and things online.

Checks are not good because it means they need to go to their bank to deposit the check.

Remember: Cash, food, and gift cards to buy food and things online.

 

[ivinsfan]

I have young adult children (think college students). They always want cash, food, cash, food, and gift cards to buy food and things online.

Checks are not good because it means they need to go to their bank to deposit the check.

Remember: Cash, food, and gift cards to buy food and things online.[/QUOT

Well if they didn't want to bother to take my check to the bank, that's fine with me, it would save me money now and forever after for the particular relative.

 

[karen1972]

I have young adult children (think college students). They always want cash, food, cash, food, and gift cards to buy food and things online.

Checks are not good because it means they need to go to their bank to deposit the check.

Remember: Cash, food, and gift cards to buy food and things online.

Hmmm must be an old timey bank or your checks are too big. My CU has allowed me to take a picture of my check for at least 4 years now.. anything up to $2500... haven't walked into a bank in 4 years... anything big I have electronic transferred.

Also btw, there are many online options.. paypal .. popmoney .. also haven't written a check in years.

Food is the only gift I let my parents give me these days... my mom loves to bake, and I'd never turn down a fresh homemade blackberry pie. The money they can keep.

 

[Rustic23]

We produce a calendar every Christmas using an old windows program called Calendar Creator Plus. DW collects pictures of brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, and grand children through out the year. She make a collage of each brother and sister family. We also include a back page with all the address, phone numbers, and email addresses. A calendar goes to all. It cost us about $5 to produce, maybe a little more, and a couple of bucks to send. Labor is the main ingredient, but for DW it is an act of love. We now have a collection 20 years of family pictures.

 

[H2ODude]

Last year I brought up abandoning gifts to adult n&n and was greeted by a shocked expression from DW. But, she suggested it to SIL who was THRILLED with the idea. Now if I can just get the idea of abandoning the idea of exchanging gift cards with BIL and SIL. It's just silly. I have no problem with buying things that would make people happy and surprise them, but just giving cash to people out of obligation bugs me. In our family our generation as well as our kids all have about everything they want or need so thinking up truly appropriate gifts is a stretch. Frankly, even our gifts to grandkids get lost in the avalanche of stuff. Oh well. Bah Humbug!

 

[jebmke]

We send gift certs for favorite restaurants to two adult nieces. Adult nephew likes to cook so we send him steaks.

 

[jollystomper]

DW and I have 21 nephews and nieces ranging in age from 13 to 40 We give gifts cards to stores/restaurants we know they frequent. We also send a little "stocking stuffer" gift (candy, chocolates, etc). On more than one occasion they have asked if we mind if they passed the gift card along to a friend in financial difficulty, and we are fine with that.

We have several great-nieces/nephews that we get a gift within their interests (e.g. one is really into the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" books so he gets one every year).

We do it since I am still working and we can afford it. My siblings and our family stopped exchanging gifts years ago (we all felt we were too old and it was too much harassment), but we enjoy getting things for the next generation. The time will comes when we cannot afford it and will stop. They know that, and appreciate what we do now.