Advice: Number of gifts for LOs

FutureHernandez

My 14 year old stepdaughter is spending Christmas with us this year (she spends the holidays with us every other year).  We are all very close and she is with us 50% of the time. 

We bought Matthew double of what SD is going to get.  A $20 pair of Forever 21 jeans got us 2 toys for Matthew.  We even bought Matthew some used toys from Baby Posh.  I didn't think this would even be an issue but my MIL came by last night to drop off the gifts for the kids and SD saw that Matthew got two gifts and she had one.  Well, she made a comment.  I took the opportunity to tell her that her grandmother spent the same on both gifts but I didn't take the chance to explain to her that this was the same case when it came to the gifts from us to her.

So here's my question:  Do I mention to SD that we had a budget for both her and with Matthew but the money stretched more for him because his toys are inexpensive than her things?  Or just let it be? 

 

FSUSammy

I think now is the time to teach her that its not about the quantity of gifts its about the quality. I wouldn't mention anything about how you have a budget or anything, she doesn't need to know that.

southmiamiwifejen

At 14, I think she's old enough to understand the reasoning behind everything. Maybe you shouldn't mention it unless she asks, but if she makes a comment, then I would explain it to her in the simplest way possible. Like Sam said, I wouldn't necessarily go into detail about a budget, but just say that you guys put a lot of thought into the gifts for both her and Matthew and that it's not about how many gifts she gets but about the thought behind the gifts.

When my brother and I were young, my mom was obsessed with making sure that we had the same number of gifts. One year at the last minute she realized that my brother had one more gift than I did, and the only place she had time to go was a Walgreens. She ended up getting me a Chia Pet LOL. It's a big running joke in our family now...I was so confused/insulted when I opened it. The moral of the story is that it would have been better for her to just leave the number of gifts uneven (which I wouldn't have even noticed anyway) than to bust out with something random like a Chia Pet just to make things "equal." If you had to try to make Matthew and your SD's gifts even in number, you probably would have ended up getting SD some not so nice, random, cheap gifts versus the nice stuff you actually got her.