Christmas--what's done for your kids by CPS, agency, etc.?

The agency has a party (this time hosted by a church group, but the last couple years has been run by the agency itself). We fill out wish lists for each child. CPS does differently based on county. One county sent us an amt per child. The current one asked us for a list of 3 gifts equaling a certain amount for each child. ECI offered to put the kids "on the tree" which I declined as they are already getting stuff from the agency and CPS and CASA and bioparents and grandma (our family doesn't do holidays but our kids certainly aren't missing out in the gift department!). CASA did offer gifts for our adopted children which we declined. That is the first time anyone has ever offered anything for our bio or adopted children. I guess it is amazing to me that foster kids report not getting Christmas when there is SO much here for every child, much more than the neighbor kids often get (which would be even more true in a poorer area).

Well, every year, the foster parents have the option of attending 2 holiday parties where all kids in the family will get gifts. This year, one party gave out gift cards so fps could buy what the child wanted/needed, and the other party gave out actual toys. Also, the caseworkers always talk about how they have gift cards donated to give to the foster families, but I haven't gotten a gift card from a caseworker in 6 years, so.... yeah. Pretty much, our county does nothing. The foster parent association puts on one of the holiday parties and a local group puts on the other holiday party for the kids.

The county does a holiday party for the region but it's 2 counties away so I doubt we go. Santa comes and hands out generic gifts by age and gender. I don't believe foster kids in homes are part of a specific angel tree program. $40 is automatically added to the monthly per diem during December though which is nice. I would feel differently if I was in a state with a low subsidy amount but my state's subsidy should be more than sufficient to cover Christmas presents by foster parents.

Here there is a dcfs Christmas party for all kids in care games, activities, presents for all. I went last year, but am unable to go this year. There are also private associations that you can join and pay dues - they had a Christmas party last Friday and we attended. The agency gives the child one gift. Other sponsors provide gifts for all foster children - probably 3 or 4 gifts. We also get an additional 10 dollars or so on our stipend in December.

Our agency has a Christmas party and fk's also get $100 in gifts.

Our agency does a party at the zoo. Each kid is supposed to get gifts from our agency and the agecny is with. That said neither of our kids received gifts from anyone last year. They didn't need anything but it made me feel bad that their might be fosters that did need something.

Last year our stbad was foster and the agency case worker brought over two HUGE black garbage bags full of toys. One for her and one for our bio daughter. We actually ended up going through all the stuff we had bought them and donating a bunch of it to toys for tots because we simply had too much. We also put some of the toys away for later in the year and used them to fill Easter baskets and even at the end of the summer when kids get bored with their old toy, there were a couple thing we put out for them to play with. This year because she is in the adoption portion they each received one toy at the center christmas party.

Last year was our first Christmas with Fosterkids. We went a little overboard spoiling them.... ;) I waited 10 long years to have kids here for Christmas and I LOVED every minute of it!!!! (I LOVE wrapping presents) Then one day before Christmas we get a knock at the door. It's our FSW with TONS of presents. WE had totallly forgotten we filled out a wish list back in October for them. We thought about donating the presents, but felt moraly responsible to give them to their intended recipients. Soooo....I wrapped those up as well. A few days after THAT, we get another knock at the door. It's from the children's CW (Through a different agency) with another butt load of presents. We begged her to take them to another family who wasn't as finacially able to provide gifts without help. Needless to say, they had a RIDUCUOLOUS amount of presents. I have pictures and it's just insaine! LOL!!! It took FOREVER for them to open all those presents. hahahaha! Throughout the year, we have "weeded" through the toys and donated them with the kids assistants. This way I don't feel bad about giving their gifts away. This year when we were asked to fill out there wish list, we just put a big N/A on there sheets. Do they deserve a million presents? ABSOULTELY!!! However, there are other families out there who need the generosity more than we do. We both have family who also buys gifts for them.

We stopped fostering when we adopted our youngest. Our agency gave each foster child a $25 gift, then each child in our home - including our children - got a $10 gift (usually a stuffed animal or art kit). Then our CPS worker would give our foster children about a $20 gift and then the CASA worker but would also bring a few age appropriate presents for our foster children only.

We are through the county. They normally have a Christmas party that includes food (pot luck) and I believe gift cards worth around $10 for any child attending.. But it was cancelled this year for some reason. My boys Casa worker called though and asked for their diaper sizes, clothing and shoe sizes and toy ideas as she puts all her assigned kiddos on the angel tree. I let her know right away that the boys didn't need to be put on the angel tree and that they will get plenty! Both from DH and I and from our huge families! I would rather children who are really in need be placed on the angel tree. But she wouldn't take no for an answer so I gave her sizes. If they receive gifts from the angel tree, I'm thinking of donating them to a woman and children shelter or maybe the children's hospital or something in their names.

They do a Christmas party here with Santa, catered food, games and crafts. Each kid (foster and bio) gets a stuffed animal from Santa. This year some were a bit bigger/nicer quality as in the past they were smaller and cheapy. I believe older fosters get gift cards. I'm not sure what the age cut off is to get a GC vs. a stuffed animal, a foster mom I know mentioned something about it to her foster daughter and she appeared 9-10. They make it seem like bios/adopted get them too but my older bios never received anything but a stuffed animal at the same age. I don't care, but just saying I'm not sure how they do it and they must do it very secretly because I've never noticed them being handed out the last three years. Now that I think about it, I think they might have two piles of bags and they hand out the ones with gift cards to certain kids. That's it though. No actual presents from anyone, angel trees or gift credits/reimbursements. A bummer if you have a lot of older foster kids, although I've only had babies so maybe they do have something for them I don't know about.

Our agency works thru another local organization and provides up to $100 worth of gifts per child. I am not sure if they offer to bio children as we chose to not participate. They also have a party for all of the families, though I am not sure if they give the children gifts as this is our first year. Other organizations who support foster children have parties for kids in our area that we are invite

They have a party which we couldn't go to last year and it was snowed out this year so we are waiting for it to be rescheduled.They also have us fill out a wish list...up to $50. I put several big items on it and let them pick. I have to go pick them up and see what they sent.My hubby and I have struggled with the idea of taking gifts...but we decided that if taking the gifts can help our budget then we will do it and then we can do more at other times.

Our county does a small allowance for Christmas for FKs only. I think it's like $20. No other gifts from CASA, Angel Tree, Toys for Tots, etc. Our SWs throw a Christmas party for foster families in early Dec. Santa gives out $ Store stuffed animals for all the kids (bio, adopted, foster) and there is usually a drawing for "date nights" gift certificates to local restaurants. I think we already missed it this year. The kids we have now are little and numerous so the party isn't quite there thing yet anyways.Our kids don't really need more than what we're getting them. If anything, they already have too many toys (we're a bit minimalist) and don't really need anything more. We need things that social services/state isn't going to get for us. A bigger house. A van. A 4-seater stroller. :) Instead, the state wants to buy what we don't need like carseats and coats and sit-and-spins. What's up with that? (sarcastically)

I was with the county. They would have a Christmas party and each fc would get one gift. The letter they sent asked for kids' ages. the facility that kiddoes went to counseling in also had a Christmas party.