Gift giving dilemma - children

[Tradd]

If you have a special connection with *1* child in a multiple child family, do you just buy gifts for that one child or ALL of them?

Here's my quandry:

My 6 yo goddaughter is the eldest of (currently) 3 children. The parents indicate they want to add 2-3 more children to their family.

I buy birthday & St. Nicholas Day gifts *only* for my goddaughter, but I have been buying Christmas gifts for all the kids. The Christmas gifts for all is beginning to get expensive and will only continue to increase. I tend to buy only books, but last year I did do the no-sew fleece blankets, which ran me $75 total.

This Christmas I'm cutting back to only buying for the kids, but I wonder if there's any way I could get away with just buying for my goddaughter, which I'd prefer and would be much easier on my budget.

The other siblings' godparents do buy for all the kids for b-days, St. Nicholas Day, and Christmas, but they're also more well off.

Goddaughter's siblings are currently 4 and 2. The 2 year old probably wouldn't notice much this Christmas if he didn't get a gift, but the 4 year old probably would.

Any suggestions on the best way to handle this?

Thanks!

[kally]

our godmothers sent us something on our birthdays and that was it. Nothing at Christmas and not to any other child. We were special to our godmothers and that was simple and understandable to me as a child. Some of us got more generous ones and less generous ones, but we really didn't care.

[Miss Cellane]

In the situation you describe, a possible compromise is to give a family gift to all the kids, such as a board game that most of them can play or a fruit basket, and a small, separate gift to your god child.

A question to ask yourself--would you give any one in the family a gift if one of the children wasn't your goddaughter? If you wouldn't, you can scale back to just giving your goddaughter a gift. The parents asked you to be this child's spiritual parent, not to spend huge amounts of money giving the entire family gifts.

I have two goddaughters. One is my cousin's daughter--I give small gifts to her, and send cards to her siblings. The other is my niece, and I give presents to her and her siblings--but I would be doing that even if I didn't have a god child in that family. My niece does get a second gift at Christmas, usually a religious-themed gift.

[Karma]

Do you send the gifts or do you give them in a group setting? I personally would fee guilty to exclude the other children if they were standing right there. Why not give less expensive gifts or something everyone would enjoy?

[Tradd]

I have bought for the parents in the past, but since the husband didn't take me seriously about the stalker guy, really less inclined to this year, in addition to wanting to not spend much at the holidays.

Gifts sometimes given in group setting. Sometimes I send them. Just depends on our schedules and if we can get together or not.

[artist]

My Godson is one of four. (This is my sister's kids) I always just gave him to him and not the others. It was never a big deal. Each child always got something from their godparents and it was explained to the kids as they got older that they all had different godparents.