Help me make Christmas more wholesome.

[JusWunderin]

We had huge Christmases as kids. Mountains of presents from ‘Father Christmas’ and another huge bag of gifts from grandparents. It was in honesty, the best time, it really was. It was so so magical and I love the way my parents put so much effort into it.

So I tried to follow suit with my children. But I’m finding it ridiculous 😂 we buy them a shite load of gifts, that are either left untouched, broken, or ruined within 3 months. The clear out I have to do before every Christmas has been depressing and wasteful. I thought because we go through their room every November and bag up a load of stuff for charity, that it would feel worth it. But it doesn’t, it feels wasteful, especially now they’ve at an age where they’re more experimenting with toys, they’re getting messy, dirty, ruined, broken (doesn’t help that toys these days are crap quality either)

Im also finding my kids are.. a bit spoilt. I have to be honest I’ve only got myself to blame. I went through a period of buying them toys/magazines everytime we just popped to the shop. Then it started being expected so we cut it down a lot. Now it’s just occasional treats. But the ‘I want, I need’ attitude remains, along with stamping feet and ‘I won’t do as I’m told if you don’t get me this’

I’ve created monsters (or a monster, my youngest is only 2.5 so he’s not so bad!) but my 4yo DD is just so demanding.

So this year, I’m toning down Christmas ten fold. They’ll have a few presents each, nothing like previous years and I want to make the period much more family-oriented, wholesome.

The only think I can think of is movie nights with hot chocolates and comfy pjs. Maybe some crafts days too.

but what else can we do together to keep the focus away from gifts and presents?

• Local church Christingle service
• Visit an animal sanctuary and give some donations (they often hold Christmassy events)
• Make/Decorate a gingerbread house. Gingerbread men. Christmas cupcakes.
• Go for a walk and gather pinecones to cover in glitter and use to decorate on or around the tree
• When I was that age, my mum used to film herself playing the piano and my sibling and I sang Christmas carols to send a video out to family and friends that we didn’t see over the festive period. It would be much easier nowadays with a phone haha!
• Make a play-doh nativity and talk about the story. Even if you aren’t religious it’s still worth talking about the reason that we have Christmas and how important it is to lots of people.
• Operation Christmas Child - The Shoebox project. 4 year old should get the concept and be able to help you choose things that a child of her age might like and need.

We choose the tree together and DS1 helps decorate. Christmas crafts generally go down quite well - paper chains, Lego decorations, baking. We get DS1 involved in choosing presents for others - this has definitely become more successful over the years! Initially it started with the suggestion for most people being a hot wheels car, as he couldn't imagine anyone not wanting that, but now that he's almost 6 he comes out with some really thoughtful (and sometimes off the wall) ideas. There's a local light switch on event with a brass band that we always go to. We make an effort to enjoy the dark nights, so take hot chocolate in a thermos to the park.

Buy useful presents instead of loads of toys e.g. new pyjamas, slippers, underwear, books, outfit for Xmas day/Boxing Day, colouring books + pencils, things that you can do with them like snap or puzzles + something edible like a selection box.

Go for an evening drive to look at all the Christmas lights.

Wrap up warm and go to a park to jump in the leaves.

Make paper snowflakes.

Build a gingerbread house.

Make decorating the Christmas tree a big family activity.

A walk around the streets if lots of them have lights up?

Kids Xmas theatre - they're usually under an hour and aimed at kids so littlest should be fine. You can do panto too but it's longer and the expectations on noise are higher

Make some home decorations with salt dough. Stuff they can put hand prints or foot prints on are good at this age cos god their feet get big quick.

Church service.

Fill a ln advent calendar with jokes and fun challenges instead of chocolate. Ooh I might do that!!

Let them help you decorate the tree. Ours is an unholy medley of proper ornaments and kids stuff, but it's more personal than a perfect rotationally symmetrical tree in two colour tones etc.

Look out for any free activities at your local art gallery / museum / library.

Go and get a load of books from the charity shop and start an Xmas Book Box / wrap up 24 and do a book advent calendar so one new book a night to read. You can wrap up some of their existing books too.

They only need four gifts

https://www.understood.org/en/articles/want-need-wear-read-the-holiday-gift-strategy-that-work-for-my-kids

Definitely agree about the giving donations - your DD will benefit from seeing that a lot of people get very little or even nothing at all for Christmas & hopefully realise how fortunate she is.

Books, board games, things like dominos?

Maybe a membership or two for places you like visiting so you can take them out to run around rather than fill your house with stuff.

People often misunderstand the National Trust as 'stuffy old houses full of priceless antiques that DC will knock over' but many sites have play areas, bike tracks, parkland, deer or other wildlife, so you can have a nice day out that is free/low cost if you take a picnic or just get an ice cream while there.

We tend to do a lot throughout the month. So a local lights trail, one 'big' Christmas market trip (usually Birmingham) and a few local ones at stately homes etc. We go into London for a Christmas lights bus route and ice skating. Last year we did a Panto and it was a hit! Disney on Ice is also AMAZING if you're near any of the spots. I also try and say 'yes' lots more around little treats or staying up a bit later.

I bring out our Christmassy books every year on 1st Dec so bedtime stories are a bit more special. Elf on the shelf is also a big hit. I spent some £££ a few years back on cute Christmas plates and glasses to spruce up mealtimes.

I involve DS in picking gifts for his friends, and we make an afternoon of wrapping gifts. We always make christmassy treats in the kitchen and last year we made little gingerbread boys/girls with iced initials to act as gift tags for the presents we got for his friends. That was a huge hit! DS loved it, and so did his little friends 🥲

Christmas gifts we are in the same boat, I would LOVE DS to have a huge pile of treasured gifts but honestly after 1 or 2 they just don't get used. I do a stocking, a few gifts I know he'll play with, and then I basically wrap anything I know he'll need in the next 3 months... clothes, water bottle, books 😂 Somehow he still loves them, loves unwrapping them, and then as soon as he gets bored I stick them away.

Try to get her excited about giving- allow her to choose a present for grandparents/dad/sibling. Even if it's not something you would choose- maybe explain to the adults ahead that they picked it on their own so they act suitably excited about the strange present! 😂 make a big deal out of her writing/making Christmas cards, helping to wrap presents etc.
Do some shopping for the food bank?
One of the big shopping centres near us has a giving tree- pick a tag with a child's age plus male/female on it and choose a gift. Pick one the same age as your DD and get her excited about picking something for a child who won't have any/many presents.

The trick is to buy things they need from now until Christmas, but to save as many as possible until Christmas. The fun of Christmas is in the opening, it doesn't need to be toys. So if she needs a new water bottle, buy a nice one now and put it away and let her cope with what she has until Christmas. It's only three months away. Same if she nags for toys. Tell her to put it on her Santa list. Keep the list and a pen in your handbag if needed. Then when it's nearer the time make her choose from that list.

See if your local library or museum has a Christmas crafting activity.

We always go to the pantomime.

Don’t do bloody Elf on the shelf, or a Christmas Eve box.

I think the big pile of presents was just exciting back then because we (most of us) just didn’t get lots of new things often at all. My parents were comfortably off throughout my childhood in the 1980s but I only got presents at birthday and Christmas. I remember my dad going on a work trip to America and bringing me back a doll and me asking, wide eyed, if I could have it now or did I have to wait until my birthday.

I got new clothes maybe twice a year (winter and summer), my shoes were sensible, tights got darned when they got a hole. I could choose maybe one sweet on a Friday and we really only had pudding if we had guests! It sounds so basic but all my friends were like this - we just didn’t have lots of things, and so Christmas seemed really amazing because it was the one time we had loads of lovely chocolate and fancy biscuits, presents, Coca Cola (!) etc.

Even the advent calendar was just pictures - my friend got one with chocolate in it when we were about 9 and I remember my mum saying “imagine, chocolate every day!”

One big thing and then lots of little things including consumables like bath bombs, chocolate etc. at 2.5 and 4, you could do most of it second hand (DC were about 6/7 when it began to feel less than ideal to give charity shop goodies)

Wholesome stuff - remember they're just kids. They want your time and attention more than anything. Crafts, walks, drawing, baking, making stuff out of boxes. A nice party outfit for Christmas day (not christmassy so can be worn throughout year).

We have Christmas books for bedtime stories, and I don’t do Elf on the Shelf, but the elves deliver a few more Christmas books each December.

Christmas movies & snacks

Walks to see the Christmas lights locally

Christingle service

Winter walks

Decorating the Christmas tree

You can do online gifting too, like the Paddington UNICEF one, so your children can pick what they’d like to give another child.

Help them make presents for friends and family, whether edible or crafted.

I give as one present something for us in January, either with both children or doing something separate with each - it might be something “big” like a theatre trip, or something smaller like a visit to the new coffee shop they’re excited about, with maybe a game we take along to play there. The anticipation of something nice (especially in grim dark January) seems to really make them happy.

Agree that reading Christmas books is great; we’ve got a big pile that only comes out on December 1st, and some are way too young for them but we all get so excited and love reading them throughout the month.

Always loved pantos as a child!

This is so true. I remember the box of chocolate bars and sweets that wed eek out into January because once it was gone, it was gone. Nothing til Easter then Xmas again. Little oranges and tinned fruit were Christmas special items too. So even relatively small large piles, likely loaded with new socks and other practical stuff, seemed exciting.

I agree with this! Focus on the giving rather than the receiving. Get your eldest to start thinking now about what he can make or draw for family members so that you've got lots of time to do it over the next few months. Also yes a lot of food banks and sometimes your local children's services will do a shoebox scheme for local children and young people. It's a good way to talk about how there are children who don't even have the very basics.

Try to avoid all of the hype (on social media) with Christmas eve boxes etc which focus on yet more stuff!

We are all adults now or older teens so a bit different but instead of the ritual and transactional annual trading of Amazon gift cards we played a game last year.

Each person had to buy 5 small gifts in the most interesting shape as possible and wrap it.
Use two packs of playing cards
Share 1 pack equally amongst all players
One player is jn charge of the other pack and picks a card one at a time, if you match the card you can pick a present from the centre or 'steal' from someone else.
Go through the card pack 2/3 times. Much hilarity ensues as random shaped gifts become coveted despite not knowing what was in them.

It was far more fun than normal gift giving or secret santa, most people kept their gifts but some swapping happened after.

Could you organise a local living advent calendar? Plenty of time to do it and then there is something to go and see everyday? https://www.redtedart.com/organise-a-living-advent-calendar/

A reverse advent calendar for the foodbank is a good idea too - lots run them so there might be one local to you - if not there are often tick off charts or pictures to colour in online and it would help with getting the message across to the 4 year old that some people don't have what they need let alone want. https://www.mrsmummypenny.co.uk/the-reverse-advent-calendar-giving-to-you-local-food-bank/

Last Christmas I went to a local farm to sing Christmas carols to the cows

I also went to a public carol singing session outside and there were loads of children there

Choosing and decorating the tree

Making mince pies

Winter walks followed by hot chocolate

Viewing the Christmas lights

Christmas eve mass

Perhaps help out by volunteering

Donate toys to the Salvation Army

That must have been a very mooving experience.

It was amazing. We went to the cow shed, there were quite a few people, and sang loads of carols.You could also sing to the bees and chickens.

It was a completely organic micro farm.

Going against general mumsnet lore, I quite liked elf on shelf.
It wasn't about getting stuff, just magic and watching silly antics play out.