Can you help me figure out who to give holiday tips to? Who do you give holiday tips to?

I don’t tip for the holidays. I tip when the services are peformed.

I give generously to the newspaper delivery guy. My road is awful and often covered in snow. He deserves (and gets) a lot. I found out recently that my neighbor does the same thing.
If it is particularly cold out, I give a surprising amount to the polite Kwik Fill people who pump gas (because their pumps are still the old style than can lock on so they must be self-serve). I figure they deserve a bonus for working over a holiday when most people are home. They are minimum wagers and most likely are not getting anything more than a token $3.50 per hour more.
If I am traveling and the room is clean, the hotel housekeeping staff gets something very nice. They can use it.
I figure a small cost to me makes a big difference to shamefully low paid workers.

Generally I don’t holiday tip individuals who are well compensated for giving me a service. They get the usual tip if it is warranted.

I always offer a basket of fresh baked goods to my mailman. They work their arses off all year, especially around the holidays, and get a lot of flack for much that is out of their control. This year, I’m also going to bake for the mailmen (we have 2) that serve our office, as well as the UPS guy and the two FedEx guys. They’re all super-friendly. Besides, they’re the closest thing to a real Santa that any of us have, so I think they deserve the cookies. ^_^

Scrooge McBurntbonez here. No tipping. Although I give away services for free all the time. Perhaps that’s a form of karmic tipping?

The only ones I tip are my hairdresser and cleaning person – if I have one.

I’m with @Adirondackwannabe. It took me a while to figure out what you were even asking! I thought you wanted to share advice on Christmas tree trimming or something. :)

For our kids’ on-site after-school program teachers we had them select small gifts / gift cards for their favorite helpers (there were a couple of really stand-out folks that really got to know our kids and were especially close to them) and provided a “snack basket” for the rest of the gang. (Our after-school program had a LOT of people that worked there.. I think it was more than 18 “teachers” and helpers.)
Gifts that were a hit were iTunes & Target gift cards (for the High School & college aged helpers), and embroidered towels (towels that had their family name on them) and hand-painted coffee mugs (a mug decorated by our kids, filled with a bag of Caribou coffee & a Caribou coffee gift card——because where we live there are a LOT more Caribou than Starbucks around).

I don’t tip our paper carriers or mail person ..and I don’t have a hair dresser that I see all that frequently (and I tip VERY generously at each salon visit) so.. we gift, not tip..pretty much as a rule.

Side note – as a Sunday School Teacher & Girl Scout leader often times I’m receiving small gifts at the holidays from other families. I have been re-gifting most of these to my kids’ school teachers. Who knows..maybe they recycle them further to someone on their gift list, too?!

@geeky_mama The regifting is a great idea. Regift it forward. I like it.
If you saw how terrible my road is you’d give my newspaper guy something too. He tries to get through – sometimes even before the plow. I’ve seen him at 4:00AM stuck in snow up to his doors, shoveling his car out. (Of course I helped pull him out.) He is not getting paid enough.

The mailman comes in a US postal service truck during daylight hours. The newspaper guy comes in his own car in the dead, cold of night. He gets the reward.

I tip my yard guy and the paper carrier.

Edit.