Spill the beans..

mcja

How can a thread about kids turn into a "i did, they did". Can we not all just accept that we all just want to give our kids an amazing Christmas day and let everyone spend what they feel is right for them?

shellsuit

mcja wrote: »

How can a thread about kids turn into a "i did, they did". Can we not all just accept that we all just want to give our kids an amazing Christmas day and let everyone spend what they feel is right for them?

The sad thing though, is that there will be people reading this thread, who want to give their kids an amazing Christmas with lots of presents, but aren't in a position to.

I don't mean families whose money gets spent on drugs, fags and beer, I mean proper hard working families who have fallen on hard times.

It must be awful for them, especially with adverts on for Christmas food, toys and gifts every 5 minutes.

elizabethhull

rosalie-lavender wrote: »

I still do my MIL one and she is 91.

That's lovely! I do stockings for both adult daughters and their husbands and my husband, and daughters do mine. When my parents were alive and stayed with us, we had tiny stockings that we put chocs in and put them with their Xmas table settings.
As for costs of presents, we spend now ~£200 per child, but only around £70-80 for their husbands. It has gradually crept up as they've been in the family longer - do other people think that's unfair ?

The rest of the family it's ~£20 each, except for my Aunt, the last surviving elderly relative, who gets more like £50.

When the children were young, and needed eg a musical instrument, it was always given at birthday or Xmas to offset the horrendous cost, and the other child certainly didn't get the same amount. Never seemed to bother them - what they REALLY liked was having the same NUMBER of presents from us - and that's very easy to achieve.

gaily

I've read the whole 200 odd comments here.....and my conclusion is that if my kids have a great Christmas - whether they get 1 present or 20, whether the day costs me £10 or £1,000, if they get more or less than the kids across the road - that it's worth it. The important thing about Christmas is having fun, with friends and family - whatever the expections.

We're not big time religious, but I am trying to drill into them that Christmas is all about a little baby called Jesus, and he's being really nice, and letting us all share his Birthday Party.

If I can hold my head high on this forum in January, without additional debt or cards, then that's Martin's job done. :money:

(sorry, i'll climb off the soapbox now)

xAlisonx

Very interesting thread, I've enjoyed reading this. I think I'll be spending approx £150 on each of my children aged 15,12 and 10 hopefully to include stockings which only have nice sweeties and cheap stuff in them. I say I think as I haven't started doing any christmas shopping yet which is now beginning to stress me out and as only one child has made a list I still don't really know what I'm looking at buying!
If I do keep to the £150 each then I should be able to cover xmas without taking any debt into the new year and after taking forever to pay my cards off that's the plan. As for my hubby and I, we only get a token gift for each other, definately no more than £20 each to keep costs down.

xAlisonx

A few people have mentioned an xmas eve hamper with things like new PJ's, a nice DVD etc in and I think that's a lovely idea and I think I'll start doing that as of this year. Sounds like a great way to start celebrating and having some cosy family time.

mcja

Shellsuit, I agree. The point seems to be we all want to give our kids the best we can, and by being MSE'rs know we shouldn;t really go overdrawn/maxed out on credit for one day and our children who love us. (I know thats easier said than done)

victory

I have never gone into debt for xmas, some years it has been less presents others a bit more, I work it to the money, their needs, their wants sometimes has to take a back seat because it would break me to be in debt come January for the sake of a bit of plastic toy, I know my kids love making gingerbread men, they love all the twinkle and the lights and the fun lead up to the big day, sure they are excited about the presents but they would not want me to be struggling over the coming months to afford to pay it off....

Never bought my kids an easter present, only an egg

lizimuffin

I don't have childern but I do have neices and nephews and i spent about £10 on each....I can't afford any more and it's something they willl really like. When we were little we were allowed a set amount of money ususally £5 (that was about 20 years ago lol!) and we picked something we liked then got a small pressie in our stocking. Last year I raided the £1 shop and got each one a santa sack sack then stuffed it with £1 shop goodies. Went down a treat!

MediSin

I don't have kids, but I've got a lot of small child relatives to buy presents for. I'm massively in debt so I hardly spend anything - my rent is more important! Recently I've been massively shocked at how much certain relatives spend on their kids though. One lot has 2 kids, 4 & 11 years old. They have a budget of £500 each, same for birthdays. But they told the kids! So for the last 6 months, the 11 year old hasn't shut up about all the stuff he's going to get. And what's the point of buying £500 worth of tat for a 3 year old? It's not like they appreciate it. At her birthday she obviously had present overload and was bored of unwrapping and had resorted to hitting everyone with her brother's plastic swords (I've never met such heavily armed children before). So yeah, the kids are really spoilt, have never heard the words "I can't afford that", and are very greedy. And it's going to be a horrible shock for them when they grow up & find out they can't just have everything they want. The reason this annoys me is that a couple of years ago, their mum admitted she was £60k in debt. She doesn't work & family members had to raid their savings so she didn't lose the house, she caused untold stress & trouble for the family & appears to have learnt nothing from it. I guess some people are just stupid...