Christmas is around the corner. We recently had a discussion about whether it is a good idea to buy DS’s g/f for 1.5 years.
It seems her family members tend to exchange gifts more extensively than our family members do.
Except when DS was young (say, before high school), we seldom bought gifts to him. We did not buy him Christmas gifts in college and beyond – It does not mean we did not buy “gifts” for him at all. We bought him something (e.g., laptop, smartphone) on the “as needed” basis. So he did not expect us to buy him a Christmas gift in general. (He once said we are very “practical” parents.)
My wife thought that if we give DS’s g/f a Christmas gift, it just gives her another thing on top of her “busy work”. (She’s extremely busy and really does not much time, e.g., heard that she really did not have time off on Thanksgiving day!)
Do you think my wife has a point when she said it is better for us not to buy (and mail) her a gift before Christmas? We will not have a chance to meet her (and DS) because they are on the other coast.)
I have the impression that she is VERY close to her parents. (e.g., going back home almost EVERY longer break in the past, say, 9 years, despite of the very long travel distance, likely longer than 15 hours of flight.) Her side of family tend to give each other gifts quite extensively. So her parents and relatives surely will give her gifts. We do not want to give out the impression that we “disapprove” the relationship between her and DS.
If you are in such a situation, will you buy her a gift? (We could buy DS a gift also but DS would not care whether he receives a gift from us or not. In fact, he has access to our credit cards and we essentially share all our accounts so it does not matter whether we buy or he buys a gift.) - This is just how the dynamic of our family is in this area. Maybe we could just ask DS to buy her a gift at their place (they see each other very often as far as we know) and tell her this gift is from us? He surely knows what she needs much better than us.
How about gifting them both something they can enjoy as a couple? Dinner at a nice restuarant? Tickets to a concert or show? Museum membership in their city?
If you were to send a gift to your DS but not his live-in GF, that might possibly be construed by some people as a little rude. But since you don’t even send gifts to your DS I think you’d be fine not sending anything to either of them. I’m assuming that they live together. If they don’t, I think you’re free and clear from any obligation.
If you do feel like doing something, then a joint gift as mentioned by other posters would be a nice gesture.
MCAT…my husband and I lived together for two years before we got married. For both of those two years, my MIL sent her son a present, but specifically excluded me because she said she only bought presents for family members. To be honest, that still bothers me. It was incredibly rude, in my opinion.
Send a gift card to a restaurant near them that you know they like.
Some months ago, before we had an idea about what to buy for her graduation gift, we told DS to go out to eat at some “fancier” restaurant with her and said we paid for it. I actually did not know whether he did it or not because we did not hear often enough from him. I think their personal finances have been mingled with each other by now so it is really not easy to tell who pay for what. (Both of them really do not have much of their own money and either her money or DS’s money still come from either side of the family. Even if I believe she does not care about the financial aspect of the life, we do not want her side of family to think that DS takes advantage of her side of family financially.
It is true that we do not give DS gifts. But we could also say that, in the past several years, we regularly but indirectly “gave” DS a gift of several hundreds dollars each MONTH, in the form of student loan payment (and he really does not know this is happening but we think he knows we are willing to do something for him if we can. I think many parents here have to do the same here also, unless their offsprings have already made their own money – otherwise the total student loan amount will keep growing each month.)
MCAT…are you saying your son doesn’t know you are repaying student loans?
I’m not sure what that has to do with holiday gifts.
We are paying rom and board cost for our kid in school. Guess what? She is still,getting a Christmas present from us. She gets birthday presents too. They aren’t huge…but she gets something.
Our DS is self supporting. Guess what? He will also get presents from us for the holidays.
I am not sure I understand your point of view here, so please clarify. Do you never give holiday gifts? If this is part of your religion or culture, then you don’t need to feel obligated to give to anyone.
We gave our child gifts when he was young. However, in his college years and beyond, money is tight due to the burden of the high education expenses (Since this is CC, most parents know how expensive the education beyond high school is.) So, we stopped giving him any present during holiday. It has nothing to do with religion or culture; it has something to do with the finance of each individual family.
@thumper, We have never told DS that we were/are repaying the student loans. Since he likely does not pay attention to this also, I guess he likely does not know anything about it at all. But he should have a general idea about how much student loans he has taken out. The school must have him sign the “notes” each year, I guess. To be sure, what we have repaid is mostly the interest portion, except for paying off two years worth of unsubsidized Stafford loans (Federal Direct loans now.)
Until my kid tells me the relationship is very permanent or I know the person very well, I wouldn’t get a present for the gf/bf unless I am seeing the person for the holiday.
Mcat - you don’t have a relationship with this young lady yet, why would you get a present for her?
Do you send a card to your DS to recognize the holidays? If your DS and his gf are living together, you could send a card addressed to both of them. Write a cheery note wishing them well this holiday season. Even if you choose not to send a gift (I vote for small joint giftcard to restaurant) I think a holiday card with a handwritten couple of sentences would be a nice gesture.
If DS and gf do not live together, I suggest you send her a holiday card to her address. Short, sweet note wishing her well. Have you ever met her or communicated with her? I think after a year and a half, some kind of communication would be appreciated. This holiday season is a less awkward opportunity to send a card (vs. getting a random card from your bf’s parents if you have never met or spoken with them.)
If I did not give my own child a gift, I surely wouldn’t give one to his GF. Will you do this in years to come if they stay together? Ignore your own? I agree with the other poster who said begin now what you will continue. If you give a gift to both and they break up, do you not give anything to your son after?
We have never sent DS a card during holiday. While he was in college, we often sent him “packages” though – but occasionally found that the package was not even opened at the end of the school year so we took it back (or UPSed the unopened package back home) when we helped him move out of campus to home
@oldfort, In her culture, I think “meeting the parents” is much more serious - almost like about the time to discuss the upcoming wedding, I guess. The dating seems to be much shorter than the norm here and the whole thing could be “done” within a year or at most two (starting from the dating.) Then, there will be a very elaborate way of $$$ gift exchanges among all parties involved. (Her parents really do not live in the US so they keep much more traditions than we do.) It is likely that she is the only person who is “americanized” in her immediate family (and could speak English.)
I like the idea of a joint gift for a restaurant. It doesn’t make sense to give gf a gift if your son isn’t getting on. Our kid has been with the same young woman for going on three years now I think, but we won’t give her something unless she spends part of the holidays with us. Which she might. She’s given us small gifts - tea from China, paprika from Poland. We’ve just put her up and fed her nearly every other weekend.
Since you’ve never met her and since you normally don’t send a gift to your son, it is a no-brainer to me – no gift is necessary or even desirable.
If she were going to be at your house for a gift-giving occasion, then I’d provide a gift for ger. If they live together and you were sending sonwthing to your son, I’d make it a joint gift. But there is no need to change your practice at this point.
To me, a gift is often a burden. 99% of the time, I would prefer not to receive one. If anything, it would just put pressure on her to send something to you. If you get the sense she wasn’t planning to do so, I would definitely not send her anything.
The best gift you can give them is to stop worrying about this stuff so much!! Send a card with a gift card to a nice store in it and be done! And send one to your kid too!
