Who do you give Xmas "tips" to?

[janinegirly]

Do people give xmas "gifts"/tips to their mailman,etc? I''m new to the burbs and don''t want to commit any faux pas...

 

[tlh]

yes, but I do so a couple weeks BEFORE.. and make sure it is to my actual mail man and not a holiday replacement. My tip is usually something they can use.. like $5-10 at blockbuster, starbucks, mcdonalds, etc. Something small, that says thanks.

1) Trash man.
2) Mail Man.
3) The Police Officers/ Guards at our complex
4) The office admin

hmmm, I think that is about it...

 

[MustangGal]

Guess I''m bad then, we have a big group mail box, don''t think I''ve even ever seen the mailperson, so I''ve never tiped them. Or the trash guys...

I do have a question to add on to this topic though, what do you give your day care provider? I know I should do something, but have no idea what the norm is

 

[qtiekiki]

We don't tip our mailman b/c we don't see him since he delivers the mail when we are still at work.

We don't tip anyone else since we don't use any service regularly enough for people to remember us.

If we have a nanny, then I would probably give a holiday bonus. If it's a daycare center, then I would give $10 gift cards to the teachers and maybe some baked goods for all the staffs to enjoy.

ETA: MIL is our child care provider, so we'll just get her a nice gift.

 

[Smurfysmiles]

er i tipped my hair lady pretty well but other than that i have no one to tip, we live in an apt lol
maybe ill tip myself for keeping it so clean haha

 

[MichelleCarmen]

We don''t tip anybody. Usually I give our papercarrier a larger tip, but a few years back was turned off when one carrier put a self-addressed stamped envelope in our newspaper providing us a way to send him an extra tip (with the assumption that we SHOULD give him one). I don''t know why I sent him a $20 bill. It was horribly tacky of him. . .I''d NEVER respond with money again.

I gave my hair dresser a nice tip yesterday. That''s about it.

 

[curlygirl]

janine, I think one of the perks of living in the burbs is that you don''t have to tip everyone in your apartment building! We have to do the doormen ($50/each), porters ($50/each) and super ($75). I also tip the mailman but I think they can only accept up to $20 so that''s what I give him. I tip our housekeeper ($100). I''m going to let my roots grow in till after Christmas so I won''t be giving my hair person an extra tip this year!

The daycare teachers get the most from us since they are watching our kids for at least 9 hours/day. We give them around $150 each--unfortunately each child has 2 teachers so we''re shelling out the big bucks but it''s worth it to me because they take such great care of our kids. I also give my assistant a cash gift of $200. I thought about doing other kinds of gifts but cash is always the right color and fits everyone so I stick with the good old paper stuff! Don''t you miss living in the City?!