What if SDD's room was also filled with other items, making her available space smaller? Would you buy her an LCD flat panel then (if she didnt already have a tv, of course)? This one is kind of familiar territory, as I have a stepsister who also has a younger 'sister' and my mom (you) encounters this issue. Sometimes, she refrains from certain purchases for appearances, sometimes, she doesnt.
SDD keeps most of her favorite things at her mom's house, so her room at our house has less of her personal stuff than her other room, it's true. There's really no way we can avoid this, unless we want to duplicate everything she owns. She brings with her what she wants/needs for the weekend, and everything usually goes home with her again.
We've put up shelves in there and filled them with photos of both families and other little things of hers that we've saved over the years (special stuffed animals, really neat little craft things she's made) in an attempt to make the room feel like home to her. I don't know what else we can do.
Christmas is an especially tricky time of year for us. Each year I end up feeling a tad resentful about the whole "must keep things even" strategy we seem to have adopted, because what this means, basically, is that SDD gets the same "amount" from us as DD does, while also raking it in at her other house. A double Christmas.
