Is it possible for a 5 year-old to get TOO much for Christmas?

he got more presents than me!!!

Each year our 4 children get to pick out one gift for the toy drive at our local hospital. To make it a little more personal we are given a specific child to buy a gift for and are given their first name, age, gender (and in some cases a wish list). We select the gift early in the Holiday season, wrap it and they usually make a card or something. (Yes this does take away from how much we would spend on them but if they've figured it out they either haven't let on or perhaps they are starting to recognize the real reason for the season).

We try to determine if there is one I need to have this for Christmas gift for each child and within reason will get that (however, if it's a big ticket item there may not be much more to open from Mom & Dad that year--it isn't always this year our four year old yearned for her own twister---perhaps we need to work on the sharing concept with her eight year old sister but I digress). If there is not a big ticket item (100-200 dollar range) then there will be more gifts. We try not to exceed the 200 dollar range per child.

Santa only stuffs stockings although we have noticed that the small stocking presents end up sometimes being the biggest hit of the day.

So yes I think it would have been very reasonable to save some of the gifts for another day (or perhaps to give a few to a less fortunate child). Will 75% of the gifts go untouched in the toy box after January 1st?

Your 5-year-old is on his SECOND chess set!?!

dukerdog wrote:

Your 5-year-old is on his SECOND chess set!?!

hahahaha i was just going to say that...

That's how Christmas was at our house when I was a kid. We just had TONS of stuff to open, most of which we had had tossed aside and forgotten about a few weeks later.

My sister's child just had her first Christmas and it was crazy. Probably a half dozen gifts, not counting what she's going to get from my brother-in-law's family, for an 8-month old! The child couldn't have cared less about getting anything at that age, much less a host of presents. So it seems that it becomes more a factor of the parent making him/herself feel like they've gotten the child enough stuff so that they'll have lived up to what's "expected" of them as parents, rather than making it a good experience for the child.

My opinion would be that yes, that's too much to give a 5 year old. If for no other reason than the kid is going to expect AT LEAST that many gifts next year.

Your solution is simple....you and your husband need to make more babies and then divide this year's Christmas gifts amongst them. Make love not presents I always say.

I am concerned that you are raising the next generation of "Queer Eye For The Straight Guy" TV hosts.....parents who give their young son an "Easy Bake Oven" are clearly sending their boy full speed down the Hershey Highway heading for Hollyweird.

Please stop raising spoil brats.

Thank you.

just don't get young kids motorized stuff. kids need to propel themselves and all the new fangled motorized bikes and jeeps are gonna result in more fat kids which doesn't help anyone in anyway. its bad enough indoor playstations have become the main activity draw but to then have toys outside take away any semblence of exercise is scary i could use an easybake chocolate chip cookie by the way

The leapfrog stuff is cool because it also teaches...and the books are good too because its all about the learning. So a good amount of those gifts are learning orientated, so i think its fine the gifts that were given. Unless, of course, that you give him a lot of gifts on non-occasions. I do like that he is a "car guy" but you made sure to get the e-z-bake oven. Man i love those things!

Thanks for the responses. I still feel that he got way too much, but because the quality of the gifts was fairly high (as opposed to mind-numbing toys like playstation, x-box, and handheld dvd-players) I don't feel TOO guilty. However, I like the idea of having him pick out toys for disadvantaged kids. And I'd also like to start a tradition of having him help me serve breakfast at a soup kitchen on Christmas morning. And in regards to the e-z bake oven, I'm a chef, so he's quite accustomed to cooking with me and I wanted him to have his own appliance. And I'd have no problem if he ended up being the next host of "Queer Eye" - I love that show!

e-z bake owns.

Oh, and about the chess sets, my son is extremely competitive, so he is willing to try any game. We've been playing chess for the past year or so, but his main objective is to capture as many pieces as he can, with no desire to learn how to establish a strategy for actually winning. So don't be too impressed that he's on his second chess set. He's no Bobby Fischer.

Okay,

-GIANT remote-controlled Hummer

-Razor scooter

-Hot Wheels Racetrack

-Large wooden parking garage (he's a car guy)

-Matchbox cars

-Lego set

These are all cool but,

-Easy-Bake oven

-Clothes

I thought he was a boy.

-Leapster handheld educational video game

-4 Leapster cartridges (these are $25/each)

These are not really for him.

He won’t play them they are boring and Come On.

Gamecube would be so much better and more fun.

-18 books

It depends on the book.

It should something he like reading when he gets older.

Like Star Wars, Harry Potter,

I liked Goosebumps when I was his age…

-Chess set (a nicer one than he already has)

-Dragon game

-Mancala Game

He’s a five and only child!!!

Who is going to play with him?

Over all between you and three sets of grandparents you serious did not spend all much on long term toy worthy items. I suggest you next year do more cheap but awesome collection items like the matchbox car theme from his favorite TV show or something.

Clearly you do not have kids. My son has not put down his Leapster, except when we make him take a break. He wanted a Gameboy, but we knew he would never want to stop playing it and would subsequently go brain-dead, so we found an educational alternative. And who is going to play his games with him? Umm, maybe his parents? We play games with him all the time. And regarding your book selections, we've already gone through the Harry Potter books as bedtime stories (much to my mother's dismay -- she thinks they are far too violent), and we are currently on the Chronicles of Narnia. And what's wrong with boys cooking with an e-z bake oven? He was very excited about making pretzels yesterday (although they looked a lot loke dog poop and didn't taste much better.) I'm going to have to create my own e-z bake recipes! But thanks for your input.

I can believe the question but not the replies.At least this parent has the intelligence to question excesses.This kid is in good hands.

I think that the answer is: Yes, he got too much. I base this on the fact that you think that he got too much. As his parent, obviously, you know better than any of us would. I would say that if it makes you uncomfortable, that is a good sign.

One thing that you can do, since you're a little uncertain, is see if you are happy with the way things go with this year's gifts. If you think that what he gets out of it and his reactions (reading more etc v. brattiness etc) are more positive than negative, then that will help you regulate your giving when his birthday comes along.

As for your fears about perhaps spoiling him long term, I think that Christmas alone cannot spoil a kid. If he consistently gets anything he wants, without any semblance of earning involved, that could cause a problem. Gifts at Christmas are just that, gifts. I think you can teach him about giving v. earning, Christmas v. the rest of the year. As you know, a five year old can understand a heck of a lot.

Yeah, your kind of right, I get board games I spent the entire day play risk with all my cousins.

Yeah I won…

I grew up in a large family. I remember getting one gift from each of my many aunts and grandparents. We spent Christmas Eve at my Father’s Grandparents, Christmas morning at home, and then after church off my Mother’s Grandparents. The end of the day I opened at least 20 presents.

Excuses…

My Dad loved Christmas he usually couldn’t help himself…

Every year he created an original treasure hunt game where we didn’t just give us the present we had to solve riddles and find them it was lots of fun.

Christmas is the only time of year we exchange gifts. Birthdays were played down.

To get something you want you could get a job or wait until next year…

What I am really saying is, you are not scrooge but you definitely not jolly old Saint Nick (kidding), the number of gift is obituary.

Yes, I think that your son did receive too many Christmas gifts this year. Quite bluntly, this is how snobs are bred. I was fortunate enough to come from a very affluent family. My parents could have provided me with virtually everything that I wanted - but they didn't. Instead, they gave my brother and I a reasonable amount of well-chosen presents, and we were always happy. We grew up without the now-prevalent sense among children that we deserved an excessive amount of possessions. Life was also much more exciting because of it: I still remember being shocked and overjoyed at getting a car for my sixteenth birthday, and am very grateful to my parents for paying for my college education and graduate school. Knowing the feeling of not having everything kept me grounded and made me realize how lucky I was when I did get something big, in a way that no number of soup kitchen visits could ever really instill.

By spoiling a child too much, you do him a great disservice. He will grow up with a sense of entitlement to only the best of everything, one that will hit hard when he someday finds out that, in the real world, always meeting that standard is impossible (even for the wealthiest among us).

Best of luck with your little one.

What 2 cents said!