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Hey so I was wondering what the general conciseness is here with birthday's.

I have 2 sons 3 and a half and 2 born 6 months apart to almost the hour. The one turning 2 gets toys almost every third day two dressers full of clothes and a tv/dvd/vcr/cable in his room. Same goes for the other one as well btw lol no favs here.

My wife is buying the stuff today, I was incharge of the food there will be 8 kids "nephews/neices" and 6 adults. Not including wife kids and I. I went and bought 2 dozen hotdogs "half to be boiled cause some kids like them half for bbq" 12 sausages, dozen hamburgers. 2dozen corn. She is making pigs in a blanket salad and cal-zones.

I came home and she has toys everywhere wrapping I checked out the bill and she spent ....alot. $300 walmart, $200+ winners, 150ish at sears. Then is going to go to toysrus. Then she tells me to rent a bounce house and a cotton candy meachine down the street.

So is it just me or is this to damn much lol. When I was a kid I got about $200 worth of toys and a dinner of my choice. When did things get so...pricey? What do you do for your kids b-days?

Yeah... that seems a tad.... much.

My wife and I usually spend around 150-200 per kid on gifts for birthday, and usually a bakery cake with whatever kid thing they want (my daughter has had disney princesses, Rio and mickey/minnie mouse cakes)


I think for us, the thing is more about making the day special. From the sounds of it, a kid getting toys every few days won't really think that getting more toys would be all that special, or treat those toys any differently. I remember growing up, the toys I got for birthday/christmas were "special" to me, and were treated differently than toys I got with my allowance or at other points in the year.

Although you have come to the wrong place for this, I will still give you good advice.

Go talk to your wife about this. It is a discussion you need to have with her. Do it now, before some consensus on the internet convinces you you are right.

Imo, when I see parentsome buying that uch, it isn't for the kids. It is so they can show off to other parents. Christmas turned into "WHO can buy the biggest and best present for the girls" at my house. This is what my mom to get me. "Something they want, something they need, something to wear and something to read"

Those prices don't make me blanch.

The two of you need to have a long talk.

Best of luck.

We never celebrated birthdays growing up and I plan to not celebrate them with my kids.

If they get gifts regularly, then why do they need birthday presents? If they never get gifts ever and the 'wait for your birthday' is used to moderate kids wants and needs, then so be it.

Have the birthday skeleton visit them. That will end birthdays really quick.

Well when she was growing up her mom said they don't do the bday thing and christmas. Not to mention when they ate out the adults would get the food and what ever was left the kids would eat.She did all the cleaning laundry and everything else really. So she tends to spoil the kids quite a bit and is a bit...overly connected with things she gets. I bought her a gameboy when we where I think 13ish and she still has the box the book and the games lol.

Just trying to keep the hording to a minimum lol. She battles the clean freak nature with the hording. Everything has a place to be put back in and can't be moved or she looks at it til it gets put back. So every now and then I walk by the skylanders and turn them around to see how long it takes her to try and fix them. Thankfully she not one of those mean ones tho if I put anything anywhere she doesn't get mad or grumpy just puts it back. Funny story is like last night I was sculpting had my stuff all over the table went to pee got distracted by the cat falling down the stairs. Cmae down and poof everything was put back in the case cleaned and put on the shelf.

"btw" Yes we started dating at like 13 lol 9 years later married 5 years after and still going strong.

DakkaDakka is not really the place for marriage/family advice.