The behavior is not equal.

The parent thoughts on the matter are not equal.

The parents are not equal (is the skid biomom around?). You are not their mom. I assume they have a mom. 

The gifts do NOT have to be equal. 

I think you should continue doing what you have been doing and feel is best for your daughter. If she's doing well in school and is a great kid and feel she deserves these gifts than why not? You shouldn't stop what you have been doing because he's against giving his kids more than 2 or 3 gifts. That is his choice and has nothing to do with you. If he has an issue with that than that's on him but you shouldn't have to switch up how you treat or parent your child because he doesn't do it with his.

Enjoy Christmas and continue being an awesome mom to your daughter who deserves it!

I'm not sure that it will matter a ton what each parent gets their own kids when by your own admission all of these kids get presents from others too.. so in the grand scheme of things.. his kids are getting lots of grandparent gifts etc...

Now, the only way I would say you need to try to be equitable is if you are sharing joint finances and he would in any way be subsidizing your bonanza of gifts while being relatively frugal on his own kids.

BTW.. I don't see Christmas gifting as all that effective of a method for modifying poor behavior.. elf on the shelf be damned.  You can reward your daughter for her achievements outsid of the "christmas present blitz" and he can give his kids consequences that should have more day to day impact and reinforcement.

I think it is fine for both of you to have different policy for gifts, however I think that you should not have a joint gift opening session.  Not certain how workable that is.

I think you should do what you've always done with your daughter.  Let your husband know that's what you're doing, and that he should take care of his own kids.  If he wants to buy them extra presents, he can.  If he thinks they should only get 2 or 3, he can do that too.  I was never raised in a house where every child had to get the same number of presents or have the same amount spent on them, and I don't think it's a requirement.  If it's going to look really unequal and you think that'll be a problem, have your daughter open some of her gifts when the others aren't around.

Do you have the kids at opposite times? I think it would be fine to give your daughter 3ish gifts to open during "family Christmas" and then give her the other 7ish gifts when the steps aren't around. Maybe make a new tradition with your daughter where she gets a gift or two every week leading up to Christmas?

You shouldn't go out of your way to spoil your SKs if their dad is against it. At the same time, he can't expect you to not spoil your daughter if that is what you want to do, and can afford to do it. The easiest solution is to just not open all the gifts together.

I have 2 bios 24 & 22, and 4 skids 19, 16, 11 & 10. My kids behavior, like your daughter, warrants more reward than the skids. They are responsible young adults just getting started after college and Id like to give them a nice Christmas. My bios dont live with us and the skids do almost 100% lately. They are spoiled brats year round. Im trying to get DH to tone down Christmas but now my bios are asking for a few expensive gifts. I feel since I have 2 and not 4 and my bios arent lying, manipulative brats, but responsible adults, i can spend more on them without feeling used and manipulated.  BUT...im not trying to start a Christmas war so Im going to give my kids some gifts on the sly, maybe even some cash or gift cards to help out the hard working kids of the family.

As far as the skids, I wish they'd go elsewhere for Christmas. Watching them open gifts with such entitlement and no joy or gratefulness makes me cringe. I noticed this when I was dating DH. He went crazy with the amount of gifts they got and nothing cheap for these skids. They opened one after another, ripping through them with a what else do I get attitude. No joy!

Havent told DH or the skids yet but Im leaving town to be with my bio22 for Christmas.

I had the same issue.  I had one child who I was able to get several gifts at the holidays.  My DH has three kids and only got them a few items each.  I didn’t feel it was fair to my child to go without because my DH didn’t buy for his like I did for mine.  

Instead I bought more gifts and gave them to my child when the other kids weren’t here.  Then on Christmas they would all have the same number of presents under the tree.  Luckily my child was old enough to understand the reasons for doing that.   

My son got his usual Christmas and the step sons never had to feel like they got less.   

If all the children will be opening gifts at the same time, things should be equal.  It's horrible to deal with a household that feels like someone is treated better/worse than others.

You should definitely discuss your plans with your DH.  Let him know: "This is how you do things and this is how I do things, but together we need a plan". Then suggest that you will take your dd out at a different time to provide the extra gifts if he does not want his bios to get an equal amount.

One way to resolve this would be to reward your dd at report card time.  Then, if skids report cards don't measure up, they can understand why dd is being rewarded. Same for behavior expectations, when dd does as requested and skids don't, rewards are provided accordingly.

If you treat your dd better in front of your skids and DH on Christmas, resentment will grow within your blended family.

this sounds like your 1st xmas together as a group/family...otherwise you would do what you did years past.

either get your kid what she wants because its how its always been done and each of you as parents should be able to talk to your kids about expectations. i DO NOT like the idea of opening extra stuff with your kid alone another time. its seems sneaky and then what message are you sending her? life isnt fair...i mean if govt welfare bio mom got them macbooks is your kid gonna be upset cuz they got something like that? chances are no...his kids can learn too.

my kids never blinked when my skids got more or bigger gifts. skids only have one living parent, they have 2. my kids tend to have more quantity because i look for deals as early as June. i used to spend $250 per kid, $75 per skid. DH spent $450 per skid and $75 on each of my kids(we each have 2 kids). now that we are married DH decided we would spend $450 on each kid and all the gifts would be labeled from "us" none of the from StepMom from step dad stuff. i had to dig to find extra stuff for my kids just to spend the money. so my kids now have crap ton of stuff to open and skids have like 6 things because they ask for like $150-$800 items. so its looked less even/fair in years past, it looks worse now in quantity because i had to spend MORE money on my kids. was DH idea though. so oh well. my kids arent here every xmas, so this year they wont be opening a thing until Dec 28th. likely skids wont even pay attention or be in the room when my kids open. 

My philosophy is that I do not get anyone what the want. I get them what I want them to have.

Sometimes those things align. Mostly they do not.

Invariably what I get for them stands the test of time.  They keep those things and charish them.  Where as the things that they want... they rarely remember a year later.

Just my philosophy of course.

Easy... “why does she have more?”

“Oh because she has only one Christmas and you have 2!” 

Thats how we solve this issue. 

I buy more for DD always have

"I have gotten my daughter ... everything she has asked for ... My SO .... against getting his kids more than like 2 or 3 gifts."

So:

Issue 1 - the two of you have different ideas about appropriate volume/value of Christmas gifts.

Issue 2 - the kids are therefore accustomed to different gift-giving practices.

Issue 3 - it looks as if each of the adults are separately getting gifts for their biological children.

Issue 1 is something many biological-parent couples might face as well: they may only find out that they have such different views about gifts when they start discussing their first child's first Christmas. Couple generally do resolve this sort of thing - those issues are a normal part of adjusting to parenthood. Can you and he ask yourselves 'What would we do if we didn't have the existing kids and were new bio-parents realising we had different pre-existing ideas about Christmas presents?'

For issue 2 - How old are the kids? Will they grasp that that the presumably new household will involve some compromises between the different adults pre-existing ideas and practices? Will your bio-daughter grasp that now there are four kids and not one, but the household income has not gone up be a factor of four, it is only reasonable that there will be less spent per kid?  Is there a choice between three kids thinking 'We get more presents now we have an s-mum' or one thinking 'I get fewer things now I've an s-dad'? 

Issue 3 - would giving all kids the same value or volume of gifts (at whichever level you two agree on) and those gifts being joint from the two of you make things easier?