To think I need a bank loan to visit Santa

IKEA is free, and our local one was surprisingly good last year. I appreciate, however, not everyone lives near a branch of Ikea.

There are usually free or cheap ones about.. our local library does a free Grotto but books up so fast. We went to one at our local museum for £3.50..was rubbish though. Next cheapest ive seen advertised is £5 mark at Par market.. National trust ones are good esp if you have membership. Just book in the santa for extra..usually reasonable. Best one we went to was at Trerice near Newquay.. was a traditional santa dressed in green...told the kids a lovely story then a pressie relevant to the story wrapped in brown paper...Will book that for our daughter this year. The whole experience ones cost at least £100 once you include everything!Crealy Devon looks quite good as there's lots to do!I find the whole meeting santa just awkward though so prefer the group ones where he tells them a story. If you're ever cornwall way at christmas the Heligan Gardens light trail is amazing and well worth the money

Yes do this. Also school fayres as well.

Yes, along with all the Christmas/winter wonderland illuminations/light experiences where you have to pay extra to see Santa too. I always say I'm not doing any, but then tend to cave and book one last minute. I have found grottos at school fairs very good, your child doesn't have to go to the school to go, so if they aren't at a school that does Christmas fairs find a local one that does. They usually cost about £3.

@Bananainpj reminds me of a certain Gavin and Stacey episode.

Absolutely! Even my local shopping centre grotto charges a small fortune. Couldn’t believe it - and why is my ticket more than DS? Am I seeing Santa?!

I think our village hall has recently gone up to about £2.

You need Christmas craft fairs and the like who have a Santa rather than Santa experience things.

Santa (aka local fireman) is in our town hall for 2 weekends running, suggested donation £3, proceeds split between firefighters charity and rotary!

Yeah, this exactly. Everyone on social media needs to see you've done the best things, or the most things, that you have the child with the most presents and the biggest smile.

Christmas was SO simple when I was younger, and it was magical and amazing. I used to love the Christmas holidays, but now it feels like kids are just rushing between this, that and the other, so they can't really just relax and look forward to Christmas Day!

The best ever Father Christmas we took the boys to see, was on the Cutty Sark in London. It didn't cost a fortune (helpful, because we had three of them to pay for), and they got to meet FC in a cabin on the ship.

Looking at the sort of prices places charge now, we'd have struggled to pay for three of them.

Oh my gosh, it’s my first year as a mum and DD is just a baby and I looked at going to something and the prices are eye wateringly expensive! I literally just want a photo of her being held by Father Christmas 🙈

Do you have any garden centres nearby? Lots do small grottos.

School Christmas fair and garden centres two good options for cut priced santa. All these commercial grottos are shit. There ones at a family run farm or petting zoo are sometimes nicer.

They do exist - usually at school Christmas Fairs. Our town has a Christmas Shopping Evening and we have a reasonably priced Father Christmas and Mrs Christmas (who were in the pub last night 😂). Some garden centres have them too. The bigger towns near me have the Shopping Centre grottos.

I agree that the prices are ridiculous for some of these events, I take my children to the Christmas light switch on at Bournville, there are little market stalls and crafts plus a free santa visit, as long as they see him they don't care where we go.

Brewers Fayre pubs do a breakfast with Santa in December for £9.99 for each DC and they get a chocolate gift.

There are always some cheap/free ones in our area, run by community organisations or the council. My dcs end up visiting quite a few! We usually do a bigger paid one too, I figure they'll get bored/too cool for it all too soon so we may as well enjoy it while we can.

Exactly this!
My children never thought that the shopping centre one was real but the magic and anticipation was definitely there on Christmas Eve

Yeah, I've seen quite a few people raving about the Polar Express Tramline, but then others who say they've been on it but found it to be overpriced and underwhelming. We've enjoyed Sail With Santa the past couple of years, but looking for something different this year.
xx

I’d come!

We have taken DD the last couple of years to a local wildlife park. You pay the normal price to get in but they have a Santa's grotto you can queue up for (15 min queue maybe?) which is free and provides a basic gift (think stationery, colouring book etc). We get to see all the animals which she loves, and it's not so busy as it's not a typical winter destination. Also it's never sold out so you can pick an day when it's dry and just turn up.

Abu.

santa lives in Santaland near the North Pole and is VERY BUSY until Xmas day. No need to pay out for anything.

very soon someone at school will say ‘Santa doesn’t exist’. Take the opportunity with both hands. As my child said so why do adults lie about this?

Think about it, it is pretty sick (bad not good) and up there with the other big Xmas lie (sorry to all Christian’s). Well not really.

My DDs saw him in IKEA last year for free! Not helpful if you're not near an ikea, however.

I've been organising our local Christmas Fair for the last ten years and we always have a Santa's Grotto. We only charge £3.50 and the kids have about 10 minutes with Santa and a gift. Last year we had a Narnia theme and this year it's Polar Express. They can also take their 'golden ticket' over to our little local museum afterwards and get a free hot chocolate! There's a 'Christmas Village' about an hour away from us and the cost per child is £29 and for a family of two adults and two children it comes to £140!!

I guess it's all down to how important it is to show off your 'making memories' photos on social media!!

You are not wrong! For me to take my 3 kids locally, I would also need to pay 2x adult tickets to enter the area. I put it in the basket and for an area which is free to enter outside of Christmas - £167 for the 5 of us.

Oh! And the local free park will be £136 for the 5 of us to go see the Christmas lights strung from the free to view trees.

So, my husband is a portly bear of a man - Where can I order him a Santa suit from?