Christmas routine

[Mark Bolam]

Sounds ideal mate.

 

I totally get kids wanting stuff at Christmas, it can be a really magical time if you put some thought into it.

 

I don’t get grown adults wanting tons of crap though, I simply don’t.

[Steven P]

31 minutes ago, Mark Bolam said:

MIL is Dutch, so we have kids stockings first thing, dog walk, boozy lunch etc. then main presents in the evening, which keeps the anticipation up for the kids and works for us.

 

Very much for that idea else we get to morning coffee time, everything opened, sat thinking "now what do we do", the stocking gifts are discarded in favour of the bigger tree gifts.

[Mark Bolam]

Give it a go mate!

[Stubby]

1 minute ago, Mark Bolam said:

Sounds ideal mate.

 

I totally get kids wanting stuff at Christmas, it can be a really magical time if you put some thought into it.

 

I don’t get grown adults wanting tons of crap though, I simply don’t.

Yea . If you are an adult earning some coin if you want something you just buy it .

[sime42]

3 hours ago, Mark Bolam said:

I’m a massive Christmas fan, love pretty much all of it.

BUT the consumerism thing is beyond a joke.

Luckily both our families are pretty sensible.

 

Our kids get nice stuff, but not ridiculous.

They appreciate what they get.

Needless plastic crap isn’t welcome.

 

For a few years now the adults buy for one other person, £100 value, and you pretty much tell each other what you want.

I got a Gransfors splitting maul one year, now there’s a present!

 

It saves running around fretting what to get the mother in law etc., then invariably buying some crap for the sake of it.

 

MIL is Dutch, so we have kids stockings first thing, dog walk, boozy lunch etc. then main presents in the evening, which keeps the anticipation up for the kids and works for us.

 

In our family we've always had Christmas lists, of what presents everyone wants. Sounds a bit boring and mercenary maybe, but it avoids the stress of not knowing what to get people, and then the waste afterwards when they don't really want whatever you've panic bought them in the end. It used to work well, bits of paper passed  around with items ticked off along the way. There's still the surprise element as you didn't know exactly what you'd get and from whom, if you had a well populated list.

 

That all changed with the advent of internet shopping though. Now it's just emails circulated around with half the entries just being hotlinks directly to the item, (on Amazon as often as not!). That's sucked the last bit of magic out of the whole idea of presents for me, so the Mrs and I have opted out completely now. We only buy things for the children.