Gift giving holiday

[Jade Sinapu]

I ask this question for these reasons.
I often do not know what to get people for Christmas, even if they are family.  This is because of several reasons.
One reason is if one of my family members can't afford pretty much anything as a gift to me, I feel bad giving a gift to them because I know it will trigger them to get me one.

Another reason is I have 5 neice/nephew who I never really got to know. How do I know what to get them? They range from 5 to 17 years old. 

Any thoughts on how to get gifts for people you don't know well?
Any thoughts on if/when gifts are even appropriate?

[Amducious]

Honestly gift cards work wonders, also Visa Giftcards with $25-50.

[Jade Sinapu]

I've been leaning towards that idea too.

[cause the rat]

Yep. gift cards are great. You could always go with something to eat and a gift card. Anything from a box of pre packaged candy to a box of stuff you put together.  Could personalize each box by finding out who likes what candy too.

[Jade Sinapu]

Hmm... consumables.  A box full of food I made or collected from purchases. I could probably do something like that.

[FarFar]

Gift cards or a card with cash.

[Kobuk]

I got my best friend a book about all the Enterprise starships in Star Trek and also a Doctor Who DVD with a bunch of Cybermen episodes on it. He got me The Godfather movie collection on Blu-Ray as well as the complete Star Trek Next Generation series on Blu-Ray.  176 episodes on 41 discs!

I gave my mom for Christmas some James Patterson books which she really likes and also some gift cards. All I wanted back from my mom was just gift cards.

[Kay Alett]

the holidays were interesting for me and due to finances it's not quite over.

First my BFF gave me for my birthday and christmas Transformers. I'm a sucker for transformers toys. She got me a G1 Soundwave and Thundercracker from the current Siege line.

Next I got a few games off my steam wishlist which were a lot of fun to play.
Also received a Shockwave figure from the transformers Siege line and a gift card to the local cinema.

Another friend decided to utterly spoil me and got me a lot of things. For my birthday he bought me a 3rd Party transformer, which is basically a really nice, high quality, knock off. Hasbro owns the rights to the name of the figures but anyone can make their own Optimus Prime or Megatron toy and sell it, just as long as you don't call it Optimus Prime or Megatron, or have the copyrighted symbols of their factions.

So he bought me a 3rd Party Vortex, a member of the Combaticon combiner team. The company, Ocular Max, is making their own version of Bruticus and I want it.
So that was nice. And then for Christmas he bought me another figure from the same team; Swindle makes a leg, Vortex is the right arm.
But that's not all, he also bought me a Judy Hopps figure from Zootopia.

As for what I sent out I sent out a giant plush otter and a kigurami to my BFF
To my friend who spoiled me, for his birthday (in november) I sent him a large box of things that he would like. A statue of Android 18 and a statue of Goku, because he is a massive fan of DBZ.
Then for Christmas I bought him a couple games off his wishlist and coincidentally I sent him a Judy Hopps as well.


All in all it was a nice holiday time. Spent time with my family, going to christmas parties, got to see the excitement on my friend's faces as they opened their gifts and were taken aback by what they received and they in turn got to see the same from me.

And tomorrow I will be shipping the last christmas gift of the season - yeah i know it's late - A little statue of Edward Elric: The Fullmetal Alchemist, to a sweet friend up north in New York. I won the figure as a prize in a crane game and when I showed her, cause I was happy and proud, she got jealous (not in a bad way, just that surface level jealousy that friends have), so I thought it would be a good surprise to give it to her. I cannot wait to see her reaction.