By way of LCC Sandra Cody Gwinn comes a terrific list of the “Top 10 Holiday Gifts for Au Pairs”, by Cultural Care’s Stephanie Reuter. Stephanie’s list is a great summary of lots of the advice you host moms have shared here and elsewhere, with her own personal twist of specific suggestions and links!

If you’re still in the hunt for holiday gifts, or if you want to think ahead to good-bye gifts, check out this list.

I ran into one of my friends while shopping at Williams-Sonoma this afternoon. I was supposed to be getting a Christmas gift for my BIL, but instead my arms were loaded with stuff to upgrade my own kitchen. What can I say? I really needed some pinecone place card holders… But I digress.

My friend was buying a fancy cookie press. Was she planning a cookie exchange, or a big Channukuh party?

Nope. She was getting the cookie press for her au pair.

Her German au pair has been baking up a storm, getting into the Christmas spirit, and pushing my friend’s pantry to the limit. The au pair mentioned, ever so casually, that a decent cookie 0press could make all the difference between yummy cookies and ‘yummy & beautiful’ cookies.

“Do you think she’ll like the gift,” I asked?

“Well, I’m not exactly sure it counts as a gift,” L. replied. “I admit it, I want her to be happy. And if baking cookies makes her happy, doesn’t it end up being a gift for me?”

Image: These pretty cookies were made by Sara at CaffeIna. Check out her blog, which is all about baking with kids (not as ingredients. As co-bakers.)

What will your au pair be doing this Christmas day?

If you have asked your au pair to be on duty and work during part of Christmas Eve & Christmas day, how did you present this plan to him or her?

Did you discuss it during matching, or months ago, or just this month as the holiday has gotten closer?

How did your au pair respond when you scheduled him or her for Christmas hours?

Did s/he not mind at all, feel relieved that s/he’d have something to do, or feel disappointed? Or something else?

What advice would you give to a first time host parent, for managing Christmas and an au pair’s work schedule?

Image: Bottle Brush Trees by Liz for sale on Etsy

I’m so impressed that there are still 19, 22, or 29 shopping days left (depending on the holiday you celebrate), but many of you are already getting organized!

Right about when I posted the call for general gift ideas, we received this email from Au Pair MMC.

Her gift-giving situation adds four challenges–

• She needs a gift for an extended family member who lives with the host family.
• She needs suggestions for exchanging gifts with a family that is rather formal.
• She wonders what to get the household help (if anything?). And,
• Her family might have high expectations….

Hmmmm.

Here’s MMC’s email– what ideas can we offer her?

I’m very confused and over-whelmed right now, trying to figure out what gifts to give to the adults in my host family household. In this family’s culture, I’m tiptoeing on the fine line between employee and family member. That’s generally difficult in a country and culture that has a very strict division between the two, as this culture does.

Christmas is coming around soon, and I have no idea what is appropriate or expected of me for gift giving. Of course, I want to get presents for my boys, but I have always felt awkward about buying presents for married or attached men i.e. my host dad. I feel very inexperienced in manners and etiquette in this area.

Also, my host-mom’s brother also lives with us. He’s near my age, and we watch soccer and drink beer together and similar casual activities. I don’t know if I’m expected to get him a present also if I get one for everyone else. We also have household help that I’m very friendly with, but I don’t know if I’m expected to also get something for them.

My family is very kind, but they are a German-Dutch blended family. The German part is a little more formal, but my host dad is Dutch and is more casual. I don’t want to do anything untoward, but I’d like to get everyone presents.

Another problem is my host-family really has a lot of money, and it seems like they have everything they need. I want to get them presents they will enjoy, but I feel like nothing I can get for them will be good enough.

I would appreciate any suggestions. Thank you!

It’s time for little elves to get busy, making things to capture memories.

Writes an LCC –

I’m a counselor for a small group of au pairs and at our last meeting the question about Christmas gifts for host parents came up. They all want to give something meaningful, they understand that in most cases the host parents could easily buy themselves whatever they want. They know that most families would appreciate home-made thoughtful gifts, ideally something that involves their kids. I suggested a photo collage and some of the girls said that they were planning to make such a collage at the end of their year. I was wondering if you readers might be willing to share some gifts that they have received and appreciated from their au pairs.

Just thinking about the gifts I’ve received over the years makes me want to cry. (In a good way.)

I can never forget the Santa Lucia day breakfast, the daily devotional reader, the jewelry box, or the Hello Kitty toiletries travel set, not to mention the wreath made of cutouts of my girls’ handprints.

The gifts that I cherish the most have either one or both of these qualities:

• They help me remember joyous or otherwise special times with the kids and with our au pair, or

• They show that our au pair was actually thinking of me as a person (a mom, a reader, a person with never too many sparkly pins, a person who loves Sweden)

Other gifts that I’ve loved have been little things that told me my au pair noticed what I needed and found little ways to add to the smoothness of daily life. For example, I got a Hello Kitty change purse to keep in the console of our station wagon, filled with quarters to use at the parking meters in town. Now, every time I refill it or take out a quarter for the meter, I thank the au pair who thought of this!

Host Moms, what kinds of gifts from an au pair would make you super-happy?

Share your comments, below. And, if you have any photos of such gifts, email them to me at mom@aupairmom.com and I’ll post them for everyone to enjoy.

How do other people see your au pair?
When you tell them that she or he should be treated as “part of the family”, what do your think that means to them?

Grandparents, next door neighbors, teachers, and mail carriers all have their own ideas about whether, when, and how an au pair is or is not part of your family. From these ideas, they have their own expectations about when they ought to include your au pair when they are doing things with your family.

When it comes to including an au pair in a ‘family’ activity with other families, there are a lot of perspectives to take into account.

First, figure out if including your au pair is right for you and right for your au pair.

Holiday meals, kids birthday parties, and trips to the Statue of Liberty seem like easy calls – of course your au pair is invited to join you. Other people’s weddings, date nights, family counseling, and long vacations are trickier.

Your decisions can change based on the event, your current au pair’s personality, the arc of your relationship with him or her, and what you as a host parent want to enjoy about the event.

• Do you want to share this event?
• Will it cramp your style?
• Will it be fun/interesting for your au pair?

Is the event appropriate for your au pair?

• Will including the  au pair (in as much as s/he is a stranger/ newcomer)  mess with the social dynamic of the event for the person(s) hosting it?
• Does your au pair have the conversation skills to get along with a lot of new people?
• Will there will be other people for her or him to hang with (like, other young adults or au pairs)?
• Will s/he attend as a guest or instead be ‘on duty’?
• Does s/he have appropriate clothing to wear?
• Will s/he know the customs of the event and know how to act in that setting?
• Will s/he will stay for the whole event, or leave after the cake and before the dancing/beer drinking?

Think too about the situation of the family throwing the event.

• Are they welcoming people?
• Are they folks who are generous with food, drink, and conversation?
• Can they afford another guest?
• Are they somehow interesting people, making it an ‘experience expanding’ event that’s worthwhile even if it might take extra work?
• Are they interested in people like your au pair?

Your decision for each particular event and (potential) invitation will be unique, but will also express your family’s general preference.

With all these questions in mind, you’ll know whether or not you’ll want your au pair to come along with you. So now you have the biggest challenge– communicating to your friends and family how you would like your au pair to be included.

Consider that:

• • People who don’t have au pairs themselves need to be educated not only about au pairs in general, but about your au pair and your family’s relationship with her or him.

• • Even with people who do have au pairs, you need to communicate how you feel about including your au pair, or not, in various kinds of family events.

• • People will take their cues from what you say and what you do, so be sure to educate them about how your au pair ‘fits’.

What else should we consider when it comes to including our au pairs (or not) in family invitations?

Images: Pink Party Decorations from amiefedora
My Poms – Tutorial from Easymakesmehappy Some rights reserved

A regular reader sent me a long email about traveling with her Au Pair over the Christmas holiday. This reader is one of those very experienced, very thoughtful host moms who takes pains to see all sides of a situation, before doing her very best to be clear, constructive, and kind when she interacts with her au pairs (and for that matter, when she shares her advice in comments).

As with many (most?) real life situations, there are layers and layers of dynamics. Underneath all of the specifics of the situation lies this problem: her au pair does not seem to understand that the plans that she makes need to incorporate the plans of her host family.

This story is a good example of how, as we start to talk with each other about the ‘presenting problem’, we can begin to see what’s going on at a deeper level. You might recognize yourself (I certainly do) as this mom explains, interprets, understands, and tries to stay fair in a situation that’s becoming a drag on her own generosity.

The whole email, and full situation, is below. As you read through, think about how the general, fundamental issue might be addressed as well as how the particulars of this unique situation might be addressed. Here’s the situation:

Dear Au Pair Mom –

This year, we have an issue that has never presented itself in the 11 years that we have been host parents.

We will be traveling at Christmas to my parents’ home. My parents live in an interesting place that many au pairs want to visit. My parents are very generous people, and have always been willing to include our AP as well as one of their friends in our plans. It all seems to come down to a problem of communication.

Our AP, whose English is reasonably good, appears endlessly surprised at the various differences in culture between her European country and the U.S. even after 5 months in the U.S. My AP does what is asked of her and is generally a good AP, but she isn’t used to communicating and seems embarrassed about letting us know what her plans are. We are probably a little more intrusive than her own parents, but we aren’t especially nosey – we just want to know if she’s in the house or not when she’s off duty.

I told her that we would be traveling to this desirable location for Christmas and offered, if she were willing to share a double bed with a friend, that she could invite one to celebrate with us. I made sure our AP had all of our flight information. Her friend wanted to celebrate Christmas Day with her HF first, and then to travel to the desirable location.The bottom line has always been that the friend has to pay her own way and that we would not book the flight.

Last night our Au Pair told me, “X will be arriving at 5:30 on December 25.” My reaction was to raise my eyebrows in a way that probably made it clear I was displeased. My AP celebrates Christmas on December 24 in her country, and although she was aware that December 25 was the holiday here, I don’t think she had given it a thought until exactly that moment. My parents don’t live close to the airport — it’s a 45-minute drive from their house to the airport. Add in time for parking and the walk through the airport to the baggage carousel, a 5:30 arrival on Christmas Day completely interrupts dinner plans — either we eat early and have a light supper after X arrives, or we hold back on the main dinner until X arrives, by which time my kids will be exhausted.

My father will trust either DH or me with his car, but if only one of us were to drive to and from the airport, that still means the other is in charge of feeding the little ones, helping my parents prepare the dinner, and lay the table. Not to mention, celebrate being together.

I told my AP to see if X could adjust her plans and arrive on the 26th. It turns out that X’s HF selected the time of her flight because it suited their plans best (they don’t know us from Adam, so it would never have occurred to them to ask X if the timing worked for us).

What is done now is done. Our AP is now perfectly aware that we are jumping through hoops to adjust to her guest’s schedule.

And it gets more annoying: Although she never asked about what we might do as a family to see the sights in my parents’ area, suddenly she is interested.

My question is twofold, and it’s hard to believe that I’m asking it when I’m living with AP #9 (in 11 years).

1.  How far does one need to go in conveying how Americans (or at least my family) celebrates a particular holiday in order to clue APs in toward marking their plans?

It never occurred to my AP, or X that we didn’t celebrate Christmas on Christmas Eve until I made a face last night (and then my AP had an “Aha!” moment, and said, “Oh, right, you celebrate Christmas on the 25th. Everything is different here.”) It was amazing to me, but she also didn’t seem to know that the desirable location was in another time zone (despite being a 5-hour flight).

2. How does one clue an AP in to paying attention to family details when making personal plans?

You want a lift to the airport? Don’t book a flight that conflicts with the when the kids need to get on the schoolbus in the morning unless you want to pay for your own shuttle! You want us to pick you up at the airport? Then don’t book your flight to arrive a dinnertime! You want to do something on your own with your friend? Do the research to figure out if it is possible! It all comes down to one issue for me – ask questions! Be curious

Is it necessary to lay how one celebrates holidays on the line months before they occur? We haven’t even gotten through Thanksgiving or Chanukah yet…

(AuPairMom sent a follow-up email for more details…)

DH agrees with you AuPairMom. We’ve asked the Au Pair friend make her own way to my parents’ house because she’s coming on Xmas Day.

When our AP said something about visiting a particular sight, I told her “You are welcome to join us in any family activities, here are some things we always do when we visit. DH and I are not renting a car and you will not be permitted to drive while you are. Here is the bus schedule.” I also gave her the option of using some vacation days while we were there, because I know her friend will be using vacation days.

Yes, I agree with you AuPairMom, the trip is about spending time with my parents, and we should make sure that the family has the vacation we need to have. But, I also feel like this is an important time for our AP, showing our AP how we celebrate the holidays, while listening to her explain the differences (my mother is super curious and will be grilling our AP), but also about showing her a very different part of our country.

But these are the issues we continue to struggle with:

1. Explaining the differences enough to the AP so that they understand how their plans have an impact on the family and
   
2. Having their expectations for their own activities be sensitive to the actual holiday celebrations, so they are thoughtful about all of the activities they book when they want transportation assistance.

Looking forward to thoughts from the community. …. HolidayHostMom

See also:

4th of July is one of my favorite holidays… all about family, community and abstract patriotic notions.

4th of July is also the holiday when I am most likely to embarrass my children– apparently, as they get older, it is no longer cool to dress up in red, white & blue and cheer wildly at the Girl Scout float in the parade, or to shriek and clap during fireworks.

4th of July is also one of my 2 favorite holidays to share with Au Pairs.

Although many of our au pairs have preferred to high-tail it into the nearest city for more grown-up partying and fancier fireworks, often they’ve spent the earlier part of the day with us — usually catching the ‘exciting to me, kinda boring to them’ town parade.

On the 4th, even more than during other times of the year, I find myself fielding random questions about the USA. I also find myself offering up what seem to me to be wise insights about the ways that our country works.

(Some recent winners have included trying to explain Sarah Palin as a VP candidate choice, how the electoral college works, why NASCAR exists, and why professional  soccer just hasn’t caught on in the US.)

For us Host Parents, 4th of July creates an obvious opportunity for questions and conversations about being “American”. It’s a chance to catch up on  some of the “cultural exchange” part of the au pairing experience.

So, over this holiday weekend, as you sneak inside the house for some quiet time at the computer and maybe a cold beer lemonade, want to tell us about a time you’ve tried to explain something really “American” to your au pair?

When a host family takes their au pair with them to work during part of the vacation, what should they provide for her during her off-duty time? Especially, what should you provide on a ski vacation, where costs are relatively high and your au pair can’t afford to pay for her own skiing?

A European Host Mom Ann asks:

Our au pair from America is a nice girl. She has been here since start of January. In two weeks we will be going on a wintersports holiday. She will travel with us to the hotel (so travel expense is covered) as is the hotel including dinners and breakfast. She will stay in a room that she shares with the boys. We will make sure she will have privacy there.

My question is: who should pay for what? Skipass, ski lessons and a rental of skis & helmet will be necessary (also she needs glasses, a warm jacket and snowpants) if she wants to go skiing. She is supposed to work this week, but if the kids are in ski-lessons, she is off-duty, so she could use this time for skiing.

I would appreciate your advice very much–

thanks, Ann

Let me start of with some general principles for taking your au pair on vacation:

• Anytime you take your au pair with you to work, when you are on vacation, you should provide her with comfortable lodging, and all the same kinds of food, etc. as you would your kids. (However, don’t let her run her own bar tab on your room account!).
• Make sure she knows that, while it’s vacation for you, it is largely work time for her.
• Set aside some off duty time for her so that she can explore wherever you are and spend a little time vacationing too. Also, make sure you’re giving her a decent chunk of time off (like, an afternoon to sight-see, not time after dinner when it’s dark and everything is closed).
• Make sure she has things to keep herself busy not bored.
• Make sure that she has a way to stay in touch with family and friends (e.g., internet access).

You are already planning to do much of this, and thinking about the other details now is definitely good.

The hard part is always whether you can afford to have your au pair vacation in the same style as you parents or the kids are vacationing.  After all, it’s your vacation and not hers.

In an ideal world, you’d have enough money (we all would) to be able to pay for your au pair to ski during all of her off duty time… However, given that it costs around $100 per day to have your au pair ski, this may be out of the question for you.

You’ll want to talk with your au pair about how much it actually costs to pay for each skiing adult. Here in the US it’s horribly expensive– maybe it is less so where you are going? But you want to make she that she knows whether or not it’s easy for you to afford. Not that you want to make her feel beholden if you can afford to treat her, but you also don’t want her to misperceive the extent of your generosity. To imagine that two days of skiing equals a week of pocket money sure puts that into perspective.

You might consider how much you can afford to spend to entertain your au pair… and then offering her the opportunity to chose how to use this budget. She might prefer two days of skiing, or maybe she’d prefer extra time off to do something less costly (skating, movie marathons, hiking).

Make a special effort to identify some interesting and less expensive activities that she can enjoy, and make sure she packs what she needs for those activities. For example, your hotel may have a pool, whirlpool and fitness room. Or, you might bring a laptop and a video camera and encourage her to make a few movies. You might identify historic sites near to your hotel and get her tourist information. I know this may seem dorky and unglamorous compared to skiing, but everyone can remember that this trip is part of her chance to see other areas of the world, and she could take advantage of that regardless of the skiing.

Keep in mind that, when you take an au pair with you on a ‘fancy’ vacation, she may thing that you have a lot of disposable income and that if you aren’t paying for her, too, you’re simply being cheap. It is hard for au pairs, kids, relatives, anyone but the adults in charge, to know how a vacation fits into the family’s overall budget.

My personal opinion is that you should try to spring for two days of skiing… maybe her two off duty days, or a few half days while the kids are busy. It would be hard not to come off as mean to take her to a ski resort and not help to make it possible for her to ski a bit too.

Talking about all of these issues is difficult, and with an immature au pair it can be impossible. But, you are starting with a good foundation.

Remember, and mention this to your au pair, that being able to talk about money, about privileges, about role differences, and so on is not easy, but it is the only way we can make sure that we are correctly understood — in both directions.  This is part of the life lessons for host parents and au pairs.

What else should Ann think about? What do you advise??

Also see:

Don’t take your Au Pair on vacation during her first 3 months!

Family Skts from jgscils598f08 Pretty young woman in white and…from nigel67

Host parents, we got a request for advice from an au pair who is facing temporary eviction while her host parents are on vacation. The situation is a bit of an emergency, since the family is slated to leave within the week. Your ideas? Here’s the situation:

Dear Au Pair Mom readers,

Photo by mamaloco on Flickr