Christmas gifts

Question. I have:
Cousins kids consisting of 1 baby and a 3/4 year old

Nieces and nephews
Ages Roughly:
1x baby
1x 5 yo
1x 7 yo
1x 10 yo
1x 12 yo

Cousins (rough age)
1x 14 yo
1x 18 yo

I had decided to give each of them a $50 Dymock's gift card for Christmas, except the 2 babies. Do you think it's fair giving all the kids the same value on a gift card? Partner says he'd give progressively less to the younger ones. In any case, I have already bought the gift cards in case you were wondering.

And.... any thoughts on what would you give for the 2 babies?

 

You could make your own babysitting voucher for the babies. More for the parents sake really, and it will save you a trip to the shops on Xmas Eve!!

 

Lump of coal for the babies would suffice surely?

 

Wow, I wish you were my Aunty! That's some serious splurging for little people (or maybe I'm just stingey when having to buy for so many other people's kids……).

For the babies, anything that is bright and colourful is always a hit. Just make sure it (a) doesn't need batteries, and (b) doesn't make noise (the parents will hate you for it). Tupperware is great - a favourite toy of babies across the planet.

 

I would give the gift cards to the four oldest ones, then buy presents for the baby and the 5 and 7 year old.
Buying presents for little ones is fun!
But if you are giving gift cards to all, then an equal value is probably safest to avoid hurt feelings (parents if not kids).
Marg

 

No.
they would probably try to eat it!
Marg

 

And make sure you get the parents to check the expiry date!
Marg

 

My Christmas shopping took all on 0 minutes to complete

Everyone gets the same as previous years.....


Nothing.

Another menial task for someone else to worry about.

 

Hopefully bookdepository never disappears...it's hard to support local book stores charging $30-40 a book that I can get for $10-15 online. Especially being a fantasy reader where series can easily go into the 10 book lengths! I tried the e-reader, but nothing beats real paper.

I think you're spot on with the gifts though, as long as the parents make sure it gets cashed in! Nothing worse than a wasted voucher!

 

I personally wouldnt buy gift vouchers for kids.
I might for teenagers.

 

Definitely not necessary to spend as much on the younger ones. I'm a big fan of educational (anything from Australian Geographic store such as ant or worm farms are a hit with kids) or sporting gifts (eg soccer ball + tshirt)

 

A relative gives two of our grandchildren $25 Kmart or bigw vouchers for Christmas. Girls age 5 and 8.
They have a heap of fun picking out something for themselves. Good for their maths as they have to keep under the amount, and they often spend 20-30 minutes discussing their options and checking with their mum.
Marg

 

Kids less than 8, still relatively easy to buy gifts for. Also a big fan of educational gifts.
Kmart has a science kit series, there's a build your own solar house.
Board games.
Legos.

 

I was panicking yesterday when my bookdepository books (about 10) hadn't arrived for the kids even though I had ordered before the cut off. Luckily the postie delivered them in the afternoon - by deliver I mean threw them into the front garden. We found another one this morning that we mustn't have seen yesterday

 

An idea for next year @Gockie would be movie tickets. I buy books of 10 and divvy them up for the kids that I need to buy for that are over 10. The kids love the present and the parents do too because it's bloody expensive to take kids to the movies these days as a family.

 

Gift cards for kids seems strange. You're basically giving the parents money and saying "Please buy your kid a book for Christmas , love from me"

 

I had done something similar a few years ago. Have them something like a $5 budget in the Featherdale zoo gift shop.
Older child was about 7, younger one about 5... older one has some idea how to make best use of the $5 (chose something for amount x then worked out how much she had left over for anything else) but the younger ones maths skills weren't quite there. The thought processes they went through in making the selections were quite interesting to see.

 

When I was a kid, I really preferred gift cards/vouchers or cash over actual presents....