@yaakov. My kids are not government employees..
I am not “generous”, I am just writing expenses off 🙂
on a serious note:
1) Timing of tips – new year sounds better than a week before. This year, we did a couple of tips near Thanksgiving. Not sure if they expect another one
2) for those who can, consider increasing ordering more deliveries from contractors, such as instacart, and tip them. These are often people who had jobs that suffered in pandemic. So, both tips and delivery cost would count as tzedokah, I think.