Preparing for Christmas 2011

carlamarie_2

candie_gill wrote: »

We spend £300 on my LO for xmas and birthday he has had about £200 aswell as a party. Hope no one judges me for spending that much, i dont compete with others and hes not a brat nor does he act spoilt. Hes very greatful for every toy he receives and it would seem his favourites are always the cheapies from £1shop!

Someone mentioned prams, my local £1stretcher in Hull had the silvercross kids toy pram reduced to £10 from £40..

im from hull too!
i hate when people give grief for how much you spend on your kids!!! really gets my goat! as long as your comfortable with what you spend, i dont see no problem!

candie_gill

carlamarie wrote: »

im from hull too!
i hate when people give grief for how much you spend on your kids!!! really gets my goat! as long as your comfortable with what you spend, i dont see no problem!

Small Word eh! Yea me too, just no need at all. Maybe someone spending a £1000 would be too much if you arent well off so to speak and sticking it all on the cards, but all children can have a magical xmas if it be £50 or £500 if thought is put into it. It works both ways though, i also hate to see people keeping up with the jones competing with their kids!

nat21luv

carlamarie wrote: »

im from hull too!
i hate when people give grief for how much you spend on your kids!!! really gets my goat! as long as your comfortable with what you spend, i dont see no problem!

Spend as much as you like I say, but what bugs me is when parents buy expensive items for no reason. When I was a youngster and we wanted a new toy we would have to wait until xmas or our birthday. None of this 'be a good girl and I'll get you a pony' carp. Im so old skool, what happened to girls skipping and boys hunting for bugs and making mud pies?!

PS; Im 25!

sammy_kaye18

nat21luv wrote: »

Sadly the eldest is my stepson and he doent appreciate anything like this as he has every latest gadget and games consol. (for this christmas he told me his mum was buying him an iPhone 4! :eek:) We had him last christmas in the morning and its fair to say he didnt get what he asked for; a signed bristol city top. So he went home and his mum had bought it for him instead! So any gift ideas for him would be greatly appreciated! Oh, did I forget to mention he was bought a Kinect AND xbox last week just for eating his fruit at school?!(...which he later then told me he didnt eat them, just threw them away! )

I feel your pain completely!

I have my son Ben who is 7,
my daughter Holly who will be 1 next month
and a step son J who is 10 - he is 11 about a fortnight after Xmas.

I try to do nice things with my kids as I love Christmas completely so we do all the festive things like seeing santa feed his reindeer, go to the grotto, walk round and look at the lights, go to the parade etc but its copletely wasted on my step son who refuses point blank to get in the festive spirit. He told me last year his mum didnt even put a tree up :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:which my boyfriend later confirmed as shes not the festive type whereas the 1st December for me is all about decorating!

anyway Im dreading my step sons christmas list this year - last year he had a new XBOX360 from his mother which we had to buy the kinect for. The year before that we had to buy him a wii as she brought about £200 worth of games, the year before that was a DS -- so Im thinking its going to be expensive.

I've told boyfriend I think we need to start setting a budget for the kids and stick to it. My step son is the only child there so is spoilt all year round whereas we make birthdays and christmases special

Im not saying - Ben did get a Kinect last year but I had won it in a competition so that was his main present.

This year Ben has asked for something special for himself. He was desperate to go and see the WWE wrestling last year in Cardiff but I couldn't afford it as I was on maternity leave, he asked again this year (they are here in November) and I told him if he wanted as an early Xmas present I would buy him his ticket - which he is landed for and I've just booked the day off work yesterday too so its a definite that hes going. Apart from that he is football/rugby mad so he will probably have a christmas focused on that.

Also with the money on kids talk
I spend approximately
£100 on Holly (she'll only be 17 months come Xmas)
£200 on Ben (but this does include clothes/stocking/selection box etc)
£200 on boyfriend

and all my gifts for the rest of the family are either homemade or bargain hunting and I do shop in charity shops/car boot sales etc for my kids too to stretch the pennies.

[Deleted User]

candie_gill wrote: »

Lovely idea making the fudge, is it expensive to do?

It is very cheap to make - but I did buy a jam thermometer last year for jam making, and I recommend using one for fudge-making. Some do it by guesswork but some people can spoil their fudge by getting it wrong. The fudges has to get to 114 degrees. I actually kept the thermometer in the rapidly boiling fudge in the last five minutes and kept stirring around it - and there's lots of stirring! Here is the recipe link
http://uktv.co.uk/food/recipe/aid/513459

Here is a video of fudge-making that gives you the general idea. It really is quite simple!

http://uktv.co.uk/food/item/aid/638876/displayVideo/hi

nat21luv

sammy_kaye18 wrote: »

I feel your pain completely!

I have my son Ben who is 7,
my daughter Holly who will be 1 next month
and a step son J who is 10 - he is 11 about a fortnight after Xmas.

I try to do nice things with my kids as I love Christmas completely so we do all the festive things like seeing santa feed his reindeer, go to the grotto, walk round and look at the lights, go to the parade etc but its copletely wasted on my step son who refuses point blank to get in the festive spirit. He told me last year his mum didnt even put a tree up :eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek::eek:which my boyfriend later confirmed as shes not the festive type whereas the 1st December for me is all about decorating!

anyway Im dreading my step sons christmas list this year - last year he had a new XBOX360 from his mother which we had to buy the kinect for. The year before that we had to buy him a wii as she brought about £200 worth of games, the year before that was a DS -- so Im thinking its going to be expensive.

I've told boyfriend I think we need to start setting a budget for the kids and stick to it. My step son is the only child there so is spoilt all year round whereas we make birthdays and christmases special

Im not saying - Ben did get a Kinect last year but I had won it in a competition so that was his main present.

This year Ben has asked for something special for himself. He was desperate to go and see the WWE wrestling last year in Cardiff but I couldn't afford it as I was on maternity leave, he asked again this year (they are here in November) and I told him if he wanted as an early Xmas present I would buy him his ticket - which he is landed for and I've just booked the day off work yesterday too so its a definite that hes going. Apart from that he is football/rugby mad so he will probably have a christmas focused on that.

Also with the money on kids talk
I spend approximately
£100 on Holly (she'll only be 17 months come Xmas)
£200 on Ben (but this does include clothes/stocking/selection box etc)
£200 on boyfriend

and all my gifts for the rest of the family are either homemade or bargain hunting and I do shop in charity shops/car boot sales etc for my kids too to stretch the pennies.

And how much will you have to spend on your step son?!

Treat them all the same I say, so you can imagine how livid I was to hear that my SS mum had demanded half the money for a school trip in August(!!) costing £400! My partner has told her that's what maintenance is for(its increased by 1/3 in the last 3 months as my partner now works in London) and she wasnt satisfied, said she cant afford it. I said we'd pay half but only if SS understood that that would be his xmas pressent from us. She said we were pathetic! Only last week my son had the chance to go on a trip costing £190 but I couldnt afford it so he didnt go. I did ask him if he'd like to go but again, that would be his xmas present....he opted for the presents instead! Ahhh split families ay?!! :rotfl:

cocolgooh

I saw the mention of fudge... I know a fudge recipe that's really easy. I didn't see it has been posted yet so sorry if it has but for anyone interested:

Ingredients:
1 can of condensed milk (I think they're 400ml but I may be wrong.. I use Carnation Condensed milk here)
1 70% cocoa chocolate bar (the large ones. 300g I believe is needed)

Method:
1. Melt the chocolate in a large bowl.
2. Slowly pour the condensed milk into the bowl of melted chocolate.
3. Mix together.
4. Pour into a bowl of some sort for it to set (such as a square storage container - easier to divide up in these!)
5. Put into the fridge and leave for about 2 hours.
6. Divide into pieces.

One lot of this should make enough for several little presents.
You can choose to add chocolate drops or buttons to this if you wish to, or even chopped nuts. Or anything else you feel like adding, really.

I make this recipe every year and it goes down pretty well with family and friends. I often add different things to vary it slightly. I hope this is useful to someone!

candie_gill

Thanks for the fudge recipes! Going to deffo make some this xmas, what do you store it in? x

cocolgooh

candie_gill wrote: »

Thanks for the fudge recipes! Going to deffo make some this xmas, what do you store it in? x

I generally keep it in an air tight storage container in the fridge. Keeps okay for a couple of weeks, I've found, but can go a bit hard if left much longer. It's best eaten in the first few days though, I must admit.

skintsaver_2

just found this thread and i love xmas

i just by chance also found this old thread with 101 hamper ideas for anyone who is stuck on ideas

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/3578846#Comment_3578846