What to spend on presents for child's birthday/christmas...

coops228

I have a friend that spends a shocking £1000 on each of his two kids for Christmas, then his daughters birthday is hogmany and she gets more!!! Scary and I don't think I can justify it. He just says he can so he will.

My first is on the way but as I see neices and nephews with more toys in a spare room that the local toy shop, which they don't play with, I plan to take it canny with mine.

daviecol

Mine are only 2 and 3 but we're trying to set a precedent for the years to come....[/QUOTE]

Wise words indeed. Mine are 19 & 17 and what you will find is as they get older they will want more and more expensive gifts (pandora charms and playstation consoles no less). So setting a bench mark as early as possible will save you a lot of grief in the years to come.

Add to that the friends they have who's parents have split (sadly virtually all my kids friends- I kid you not) and therefore they receive two lots of gifts on birthdays and Christmas plus the latest contract mobile from (usually) dad do he can stay in touch plus lots of guilt money. Basically you will never be able to compete with these kids so just set a limit and stick to it.

74jax

My birthday is boxing day and so i'm in a similar position to your son.

Some tips which you might find helpful (I know you didn't ask for any so you can stop reading now if you think i'm crossing a mark....)

Please wrap birthday presents in birthday paper. My brother used to 'forget' and I'd always get xmas paper, he'd say it was cheaper etc..... so one year I wrapped his birthday present in xmas paper and he then realised that it is a small gesture that does mean a lot - don't ask why but it does.

Try to get your birthday card before December as birthday cards are taken away to make room for Christmas cards and so you'll be left with not much choice.

Try really really hard not to ever 'combine' presents. One of my ex bf's once got me a really nice weekend away as a 'joint' christmas and birthday. It may seem horrid, but I spend all year waiting for my birthday and christmas and like them seperate. I would never dream of getting my now bf a weekend away in July for his birthday and saying it's for his christmas present too but them actually when it comes to christmas not getting him anything.

try to have a birthday party before the school breaks up for xmas, that way they still get the fun of a party and it's not taken up with playing christmas games etc.

Pollycat

dizzyblonde82 wrote: »

Hi,

My son will be 5 on Christmas Eve and I am wondering how people split what they spend on Christmas and Birthday presents - do you spend the same on both or more for Birthday/Christmas.

Last year I went a bit mad as I felt guilty that he doesn't really get much the rest of the year and wanted to celebrate the days separately. DH's birthday is New Years Eve and he said that all through his live he only ever got one present to cover both Christmas/Birthday.

This year I am limiting my spending but wondering how I should split what I spend?

Thanks
Sarah

I always spend more on birthdays - like sp1987 says, that's a day that is special to one person.

dizzyblonde82
is your dilemma worse because your son's birthday is the day before Christmas?
I guess at that age, 2 days full of presents might be a bit over-whelming for him.
If he's not having a party that day, I'd try to make Christmas Eve extra special by maybe spending time cooking biscuits for Santa or something like that.

ETA
74jax has some great suggestions.

Fuzzy_Duck

74jax wrote: »

My birthday is boxing day and so i'm in a similar position to your son.

Some tips which you might find helpful (I know you didn't ask for any so you can stop reading now if you think i'm crossing a mark....)

Please wrap birthday presents in birthday paper. My brother used to 'forget' and I'd always get xmas paper, he'd say it was cheaper etc..... so one year I wrapped his birthday present in xmas paper and he then realised that it is a small gesture that does mean a lot - don't ask why but it does.

Try to get your birthday card before December as birthday cards are taken away to make room for Christmas cards and so you'll be left with not much choice.

Try really really hard not to ever 'combine' presents. One of my ex bf's once got me a really nice weekend away as a 'joint' christmas and birthday. It may seem horrid, but I spend all year waiting for my birthday and christmas and like them seperate. I would never dream of getting my now bf a weekend away in July for his birthday and saying it's for his christmas present too but them actually when it comes to christmas not getting him anything.

try to have a birthday party before the school breaks up for xmas, that way they still get the fun of a party and it's not taken up with playing christmas games etc.

Really shocked by how many people get joint presents for christmas and birthday It sounds lazy and cheap to me, and seems especially mean doing it to a child. There are lots of winter birthdays in my family including myself and we always get separate gifts. As my birthday is in early January my parents start buying me gifts early and split them into two. It's not that hard if you leave yourself enough time to budget.

The above is a good point- I've only received christmas wrapping for my birthday once from a friend, who was very apologetic saying she simply couldn't find any. I can definitely believe that- it was my mum's birthday earlier in the month and I could only find christmas paper! I eventually found shiny red, green and silver which were obviously supposed to be christmassy colours but just about acceptable!

Nearly forgetting original question- I think birthdays are more important and used to spend more on them than christmas. Now money is tight I tend to spend an equal amount. I do tend to buy one fancy gift for birthdays and cheaper stocking fillers for christmas though.

Spendless

My friend has 2 December born children and when they were litle she would mark 1/2 birthdays, so they had a treat in June, she would buy a summer toy for them eg a paddling pool. She did this to compensate for the number of people who were buying 'joint birthday/xmas' pressies and it stopped her buying more to make up for it-as she knew they got an extra special time mid-year.

To answer your question I spent about 1/2 on a birthday present than I do xmas for the kids, but they also have a party for their birthdays so it works out about the same.

*Louise*

dizzyblonde82 wrote: »

Is it normally the mum or dad who picks out presents or do most couples choose the presents together? Only asking as each year I am left to do it all on my own DH is completely useless and never has any suggestions for what to buy our son!

Get used to that :rotfl:

My hubby shows no interest in choosing the gifts....he just likes to see them piled up. It's not that he doesn't care - he works hard to pay for the stuff we buy - he is just rubbish at choosing things. He does listen when I chat to him about it though.

In answer to the OP - we spend more on christmas than birthdays. Birthdays are around £50, then the cost of party food


My nephews birthday is 2 days after chirstmas.....no one would dare get him a joint' xmas/birthdfay present...they woudl have the wrath of my sister upon them if they dared!!:eek::rotfl:

minerva_windsong

Feel free to ignore this, but my parents normally spend about £100 on each on me and my sisters for our birthdays, and the same again at Christmas (but then we are 'adult children'). However I don't think you need to spend a massive amount of money to have a good birthday/Christmas, when I think back to childhood Christmases now my memories are of what we did - walks in the snow, sledging, making snowmen etc - and being with my family rather than the gifts.

I would say get him a big(ger) present to open on his birthday and then lots of little bits to open on Christmas Day - I presume he has a stocking? That would seem like a good compromise to me as he still has something to open on both days.

And re: men choosing presents, I've never known any of the menfolk in my family buy Christmas presents for anyone other than their wives, not even helping pick the kids'/relatives' ones. In fact my dad has been known to go to me, "Here's 50 quid, go and get your mum some of that posh make-up she likes" on several occasions!

dizzyblonde82

Thanks again for all the tips

Last year I wrapped his birthday presents in birthday paper and will always do that so that it helps him to separate the dates. He had a separate presents each day but was very disappointed on Boxing day when he came downstairs and there were no more presents :rotfl:

I talked to my DH when he finally made it home from work and he agreed that I had picked a good variety of presents and was surprised that I had managed to stick to my budget

I decided to spend £50 on his birthday presents and £50 on main christmas presents. I will sort out some small presents for stocking fillers by picking bits up when out shopping.

I did really well getting things I wanted for him at reduced prices and saved 25% on toys at argos and got £10 back in vouchers as I spent just over £50 there, went and collected those presents earlier from store to save postage costs.

Caroline_a

My (grown up) children tell me that the present they remember loving best was the year I have very little money for Christmas, so decorated a couple of shoe boxes, and filled them with lots and lots of cheap stationery items, pencils, pens, crayons, pencil sharpeners, paperclips, etc in the brightest colours I could find. I think I spent a maximum of £20 each, but each tiny item was individually wrapped (no, not each paper clip :rotfl:), took me ages, and took them longer to open, but it obviously made a big impression, more than the more expensive toys we bought in later years.