My daughter is a junior, but she has a ton of friends who are seniors. I started out buying cards and giving her $20 to put in each card as a gift. Well, everyday she has a new invitation. Am I obligated to buy a gift for each graduation Open House? This is getting way to expensive. What should I do?

I was going to say usually people do until I read about how many!! lol
I don't think you "Have" to buy for everyone. You can either ask her to pick a few that she is really close to and go from there or my daughter received some gift cards for Mcdonalds, Sonic etc and a few of them were for $5 or $10. She thought that was great. Hope this helps some.

I would say that you only "have" to give a gift to those kids that you, as a family, are close to. When I graduated, my friends all came, but I only received a gift from my best friends' parents, you know, the ones that you're at their house all the time, eating their food, your home away from home kind of friends. Just my $.02 .

I came from a class of 50, and the class before me had around 60. In a small town my parents knew about 80% of the kids in these two classes. What they did was a card for any that they just knew with $5 in it. For anyone that I was close with (yes the ones over at our house eating the food!) got anywhere form $20-$50 and a gift. It just depended on how much they were a part of our lives.

But don't feel obligated to give to everyone. I received a lot of cards from friends parents that didn't have anything in them but a couple of words of encouragement and a memory they had of me and their family. For me that was enough, it was enough to know they thought of me.

It's been about 8 years since my high school graduation, and open house.

Anyway, I never expected or anticipated gifts from anyone, but those who did were often adults that were friends of the family. I don't think it's expected for school-aged kids to provide a gift.

That's just my HO.

I think it's polite to give a gift if she goes to the open houses. But it doesn't have to cost twenty dollars. She could just make a good CD with music from the past few years, or you could make her some nice sweets to take, or she could buy a good used book (e.g., a recipe book), or she could create a photo album - stuff like that. It's nice to show up with something as a gesture to celebrate with the graduate, but the cost isn't important.

In my house I have a certain amount (total amount) that I can afford to give. I then divide it between the invitations that I receive. I only consider close friends and close family relatives. Some years I might get only a few cards and they get a bigger amount than other years when I have more invitations. Also, are the ones that you will be giving the gift to appreciative enough to send a thank you note in return. That is one requirement that I made sure my son followed through on. If he received a gift, he could not use the gift until the person that sent it was thanked with a handwritten note. My husband comes from a large family and he was a teacher for 30 years, so we got plenty of graduation invitations every year. You just need to address the ones that are the most meaningful to you. Some kids just send out invitations just to see how much they can get and do not even think about thanking you for your gift. Just remember it is not mandatory that you give for every invitation, just give to those you wish want to help.