It looks like a very lean Xmas, bonus-wise. I got a $100 Amex card, which I used to offset my Va. trip and our holiday party food costs. NT's company mentioned they'd get a "token" of appreciation on Friday; doesn't sound too promising! AS has heard nothing of a potential bonus at her job.

Luckily we had AS's freelance check to set aside money to tip our service providers. We're doing a very similar setup to last year:

- $50 and a bunch of cookies to our house cleaner
- $25 to the condo building management's employee holiday fund
- $50 to our cloth diaper service provider
- $200 to our daycare providers
- Card to our estate planning/adoption lawyer

We decided to give a bit less to our house cleaner since we have a new one who's only cleaned for us two or three times, and a bit more to the diaper service since they now handle two little girls' dirty diapers instead of one. We're giving all cash to daycare instead of cash and gift cards, just to keep it simple, with a total value that's $25 more than last year.

All told, only $10 more than last year.

Since we had planned to fund NT's big 40th birthday party next year on any bonus money we got this year, it looks like it'll be a smaller celebration than I'd hoped. But we'll still manage to make it special.