Gift Giving with Multiples

By Lisa Glickstein, Ph.D, Triplet Mom
Originally printed in December 2003

Holidays mean family and friends visiting, special meals, and special rituals, including 
giving and receiving gifts.  While people of different faiths, or even ethnic groups, 
celebrate in unique ways, exchanging gifts is usually part of the holiday.  How do we 
handle gift giving with multiples - both what to give them, as well as what they give to 
others?

Most people agree that they want to walk the line between indulging their kids - who 
have often been long-awaited - and letting them understand the true meaning of the 
holidays.  As one TMM Mom put it, "we've tried to downplay the importance of 
receiving, but play up the giving part."

For gift giving, especially to family members, handmade items from the kids are often 
best.  These go over well with grandparents, and older aunts and uncles, rather than same-
age cousins.  Gifts may range from school artwork, to macaroni necklaces and picture 
frames, to plaster art from one of the local studios.  Oriental Trading Company sells 
cheap craft kits (usually less than $6 for 12 small kits) to make ornaments, photo frames, 
magnets, and decorations.  Photos, framed or unframed, are also popular gifts.

There are many variations on gift-giving to the extended family, including drawing 
names to be someone's "Secret Santa," giving family gifts like a Blockbuster gift card, 
popcorn, and cocoa packets, or doing a Yankee Swap of new or white elephant gifts.  For 
those who aren't Yankees (this was new to me as a New Yorker), each person brings a 
wrapped gift, numbers are drawn, and (with some local variations), each person chooses a 
gift in order, and can keep their gift or force someone else to "swap" with them to get 
something better.  My husband and I try to do something different each year - one year 
we bought a membership to the Nature Conservancy in his family's name in place of gift 
giving to the adults, and gave each cousin a small gift certificate to the Discovery store.  
Another year we were in the midst of moving and boxed up some nice items we were 
ready to part with and gave them to our families - gently used books, music CDs, and 
even a necklace to my niece.  Other fun ideas if your family lives close are a pre-holiday 
ornament swap, or a cookie and recipe swap.  In the latter, each person bakes one type of 
cookie, a half dozen for each person coming to the swap.  Then you take home a half 
dozen of many types of holiday cookies, and some new recipes!  Elderly relatives often 
greatly prefer consumable gifts like food, phone cards, or magazine subscriptions, to 
knick-knacks that will clutter up their homes.

Any of these ideas gets away from buying one gift per person (or per child) for Grandma, 
Grandpa, Mom, Dad, and so on.  In our family, the girls and I go together to buy one or 
two gifts for Daddy (one from me, one from the girls), and he does the same for me.  
Since Santa is visiting and sure to bring at least one gift for Mommy and Daddy, this 
covers our wish lists.  The girls do buy one gift each for each other, using their 
allowance.  This is usually a small item, for example, an action figure, dime store item 
from the Christmas Tree Shop, or similar.  Julie Day has her husband, Michael, take each 
of her kids shopping on consecutive weeks on their "special day."  Daddy takes the 
shopper out to dinner after work, and then to fill their wish list for sisters and brother, 
Mommy, and any others.  At our kids' age, they buy few gifts for friends, but if we are 
invited to a holiday party, we enjoy bringing something small for their kids, along with 
wine or flowers for the hosts.

Finally, receiving gifts is a huge part of the holiday fun for kids.  Julie is organized and 
has a wish list for reference when the grandmothers and aunts call wondering what to 
buy.  We tend to keep a list of the girls' current passions, whether it is trains, dinosaurs, 
music, or a particular character.  We usually let the relatives buy the girls fun gifts, and 
we buy practical ones, for example, pajamas or sheets with a favorite character.  Last 
year, my sister and sister-in-law each sent the girls gift cards (one set for Toys R Us, the 
other to Target), and we saved them for days in the middle of winter when we needed a 
fun outing.  Some people set limits on gifts - no violent toys, no plastic toys, no 
characters, or so on.  We tend to just recommend against things the girls have lots of 
already, or don't play with.  Start a tradition of giving the kids a snow globe, a charm for 
a bracelet, or a family heirloom.  And, of course, you have to let Santa know what to 
bring.  Julie and Michael let the girls ask for three items each from Santa - I love that idea 
and we have adopted it too.  In our house, the girls are amazed that Santa always knows 
they need new socks and underwear and stuffs their stockings with them!  My husband 
always got an orange or apple from Santa in his stocking, and the girls do too.  Santa 
likes them to be clean and healthy!  Another friend says that Santa always brings her kids 
new toothbrushes.  Far from being disappointed, the kids get a huge kick out of it.  For 
Hanukkah, we don't give large gifts each night, but spend some of the nights going on a 
special outing, for example, a play date with friends, a movie, an ice cream cone at 
McDonald's, or a drive to see holiday lights.  Other nights, the girls might get candy, or a 
small gift like a Hot-Wheel or doll outfit.

If you are organized, you can find sale items all year-round, use the monthly coupons for 
Learning Express, and so on.  Walmart and K-mart are good sources for sale prices on 
brand-name toys and Barbie merchandise.  Target has a great line of their own toys that 
are inexpensive - particularly their "Brio-like" wooden trains are a great purchase.  The 
Christmas Tree Shops are good for filler items, and fun things like personalized key 
chains, notebooks, and so on.  If you have clean toys in good condition, you can resell 
them to the Children's Orchard and make some money to put towards holiday shopping.  
Some people get a seasonal retail job to make a bit of extra money for holiday shopping - 
many stores have extended evening hours and need extra help on busy weekends as well.  
But, remember that the most important gift you can give your kids is financial stability.  
In the end, holiday memories will be made up of time spent baking cookies or holiday 
foods, listening to special music together, a special evening caroling with neighbors, or 
certain stories read on Christmas Eve.  Don't spend so much time working, shopping, or 
worrying, that you miss making and sharing those special memories.