When they aren't married...

We have a bit of a situation here. My BIL and his girlfriend just had a baby together yesterday. She has two other children from previous relationships. She has often expressed that she will leave my BIL at any time if it suits her. Okay, so how are we supposed to treat the other two children? Legally, they are not in any way connected with us and one of kid's father's family is very involved in her life. The other one both parents have decided on no contact, because the father doesn't want it.

I understand where dh is coming from when he says, he feels he cannot get attached to these other two children until his brother has made a legal commitment to his girlfriend. Mainly because she talks about leaving him so much. The girlfriend gets upset when I talk about gifts we've given our other nieces. We have a long history of exchanging gifts with the girls. However, I do not exchange gifts with my sister's children. We have an agreement not to, since we notoriously get each other gifts the other hates. So it's not like we're treating these kids any different than my sister's kids.

Christmas is rolling around before we know it and we're busy getting our other nieces gifts. We try to get them WV heritage gifts and those aren't easy to find. Now, we're trying to decide what to do for the girlfriend's kids. Last night we pretty much decided to get a family gift and one for the baby, because she is our family no matter what.

What would you do in this situation? We've already made our decision. I just wanted to know what others think.

We were thinking of games for the whole family. Not that they play games much from what we can tell, but BIL enjoys games, so maybe he'll play games with the kids.

The others get gifts from their fathers.

Of course, we could always just not get any of them a gift which is what we do for my sister's kids.

Come to think of it, in two years, they've never even sent our dd a card. Or even had their kids draw her a picture. Our dd doesn't really need a gift, but it's really not fair for them to do nothing for her either.

Kids actually expect to get gifts from people they've never met before. Never talked to to before and probably never will meet and are in no way related to? How much does a gift from a total stranger mean to a kid when they get trips to Hawaii from their biological father? I just don't think it would mean that much to them. Their other family doesn't get gifts for this one either.

I have honestly wondered if she thinks of us like a cash cow just like she does him. As soon as she finds a richer guy he's history. I really don't want to play Santa Claus to her kids when she is the way she is. She should be getting her kids presents and if other people do to, well, that's nice, but it's not required. I care about my niece and nephew even though the most I ever gave them was a small Christmas ornament that I made and cards.