Father Christmas Visits are so expensive

Im feeling conflicted about this too. Last year we spent about £180 on 2 events and honestly, both were really disappointing , and the same for the previous year. Once again, I am feeling the pressure to book something again this year, but just can't justify some of the prices. The best santa and grotto we have seen so far was the local garden centre charging a fraction of the price.

The best we ever had was one year when dd was small the local M&S had one for free.
You went in and there were presents all over the floor. Then the "elf" was all horrified that it wasn't going to look tidy for Santa, and asked the children to tidy up. They would run about putting the presents neatly, then Santa appeared, thanked them, and gave them all their "pay" (a chocolate coin) for helping and asked them their names which he wrote down on the "good list". On the way out they got a sticker saying "I've been good".
Dd talked about it for ages. Tbf she was only small, and I don't know whether older ones would have liked it, but rarely have they got a present from a Santa which was worth the money (let's face it, if it is, then Santa's probably operating on a loss!)

Lapland UK sold out within a couple of hours of the tickets going on sale in March. A lot of these things require advance planning.

Our favourite was the Black Country Museum. You go into all the different houses before meeting Santa, help a lady stringer Xmas pudding, get a lucky reindeer shoe from the blacksmith etc. Really nice day out.

I agree it’s a good age to transfer to making some non-Santa traditional. Christmas at Kew is magical, and we also go ice skating (usually in Greenwich, then on somewhere cosy for lunch).

Re: being too old, one of DS’s darling little friends told everyone in the class that Santa wasn’t real in Reception. I’m not sure if he 100% lost faith to then, but he definitely thinks the Santas in these experiences are fake, and is quite openly just interested in the present now.

The London Zoo Santa experience is reasonable if you are already a member because you get a £15 teddy so basically break even. We usually go at least once per school holiday anyway. Wouldn’t be worth it if you also had to buy a £30 entry ticket.

Spinnaker tower in Portsmouth is good, you also have gun wharf to go shopping, maybe book panto (which is also reasonably priced) at the kings theatre 🎭 you should be able to get a fun day out at reasonable costs!

"It's September 16 for Christ's sake, not December 1. Don't wish your life away."

Good luck booking anything decent if you leave it until December

I think a lot of these places get booked up very early.

It's September 16 for Christ's sake, not December 1. Don't wish your life away.

"Paying for visits to Lapland UK, and all the rest of the marketing nonsense about breakfasts and "experiences" and train rides and the rest of the shite is hardly essential."

Are we only doing "essential" things again?

Better root out my covid mask 😂

Lapland UK is fantastic. Only once but it's brilliant, many other things here are pretty shite. Chester Zoo lanterns was good

We did Lapland Uk in 2020 after a grotty year and it being hyped by my competitive neighbour.

Absolute load of crap and not worth the money.

Chessington garden centre used to be lovely and wasn't a fortune but I realise this may have changed now.

Now they are older we try and do a theatre show so this year we are going to see the lion king.

You get the buzz of being in London with all the lights etc which makes it feel christmassy but you also get to see a great show

Santa visits our town on the fire truck - it's great and even us adult households go out or cheer from the balconies. Then on the middle weekend he's at the town hall and you bring food for the food bank and make a donation to see him, the tapas bar next door has mulled wine and paella street food style too. This is so much better than the commercial experiences. And the town switch on is brilliant too

I totally agree. The cheapest for 3 of us (2 adults, one child) I can find is £50. She’s only 3 so I really just want a brief garden centre free visit like there used to be when my ds (12) was little. The garden centres that used to do a feee/cheap visit now put on a huge arranged “breakfast with Santa”. It’s crazy how much it has changed in less than 10 years.

How can a 6 year old be too old for santa? That's really sad. My daughter will be nearly 8 and we are still visiting santa.

As a child the real Santa was the one in the Selfridges grotto accompanied by Uncle Holly. Any other Santas confused me so my parents told me the others were just 'helpers' and the Selfridges' Santa was the real one. My own children knew that the Santa at the infants' school Christmas Fayre was the real one and all the ones at other venues were just Santa's helpers. Cheap, easy but still memorable.

This!

Chances are pretty low that a 3 year old will actually remember any of it. I spent the best part of a year living somewhere very famous and memorable when I was 3, but do I remember any of it? Do I heck. My one and only memory of all the stuff we did and saw is of the ice cube machine in the hotel my grandparents stayed in when they flew out to visit us. That's literally it.

Doing the same thing every year however - that builds layers of memories and IMO that's where the magic comes into it.

The memories will last forever

They really won't. Half the reason we have Christmas memories is that things happen repetitively every year - the Coke ad on TV, local Rotary driving a Santa float down the street, Salvation Army band outside WHSmiths.

These are the sort of things that are out of the ordinary and when you see them, feel all Christmassy because they remind you every year.

I went with my parents to Hamleys on a special trip every year as a child. Can't remember a thing about them except they happened and apparently I loved it.

Surely half the fun of it is finding one that's really bad and then doing a sad face in the local paper while you moan about paying £500 to see some drunken elves and Santa having a smoke behind the grotto

National Trust is part of membership and our local one is lovely

Our nearest National Trust property doesn't charge to see Santa, maybe others are the same? They don't guarantee you'll see him and there's no toy but our most magical Santa visit was walking round the beautifully decorated house and then turning a corner to find him resting by a real open fire. He looked like a proper Victorian postcard of Santa. He chatted to my daughter and I took a photo of them together by the fireplace. It was a hundred times better than the ones I've paid for in shopping centres and places like that. They say which days Santa will be on the property on their website/app and you can then spot him pottering about.

We've booked Stockeld Park this year, we haven't been to the Santa experience but we've been over the summer and it was fantastic, we didn't even get to see it all in a day as there's so much to do. The Christmas experience looks really good, with a Santas grotto and a lights trail etc. I think there's even a show but we haven't booked that part. Not the cheapest at £107 for 2 adults and 1 child admittedly, but it's only once a year and the memories will last forever won't they. DD is only 3 so want to make the most of these things while she's small!

It’s a lovely tradition, but the costs have got out of hand. Even garden centres are charging exorbitant amounts.☹️