Worried about dc growing up to fit in all the Christmas experiences

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Worried about dc growing up to fit in all the Christmas experiences. There’s only a certain amount of time you have, to take them to places like Lapland, Disneyland, Christmas lodges and holidays, days out. Does anyone else feel like this?

It sounds like the modern day keeping up with the Joneses. How sad that to feel you had to do all of these outrageously expensive experiences when that aren't even lead by DC.

Absolutely none of that is necessary and your children probably won't even remember half of it. Save your money!

Pre Christmas for my DCs was seeing Father Christmas at the garden centre and driving around the local towns in the evening looking at all the decorated houses.

Why oh why does everyone feel the pressure to provide expensive experiences these days? Keep it simple.

Absolutely not.
Under about 8 they won't remember any of it anyway.

When I was a kid we could afford to do precisely fuck all of the “experiences” that I’m supposed to do with my kids now. It made zero difference to how happy I felt or how much I adore Christmas. Pretty sure I’m in the majority.

One of our Christmas traditions is counting how many houses have Christmas lights on the drive hone from a relatives house.
Another is being silly with Crackers and paper hats. Another is playing a board game all together after Christmas lunch.
When DS was small we enjoyed trips to local places e.g. a farm park to see Santa and had a walk through a local city to see the lights.
There's no need to spend £££s to enjoy Christmas with your DC

You don’t have to be responsible for giving your children ALL the experiences. Not just Christmas themed ones. Holidays too. They will also have plenty of life to have their own experiences and travel or do Christmas things. It doesn’t need to be rammed into 18 years of childhood.

you just have to decide what is important to you and prioritise that. We are doing Lapland this year and I’m very excited for it but realistically most children will not do that. A lot of the time the things that are cherished are linked to time and doing little things. I think the number of families doing everything on the OPs list will be tiny.

Yes to this. Days out can end up quite stressful....managing public tantrums, queuing, other people, the expense. The pressure for everyone to have an amazing best day ever EVER including perfect family photos to post online. I gave up trying to get a perfect day out and perfect photo years ago and am now a much more chilled out parent. Much better to have a chilled cosy time and not following the crowd.

The experiences kids treasure aren't usually the fancy, expensive ones. DD7 has been abroad a few times and generally has a pretty nice life but says the happiest she ever felt was eating our lunch (of Co-op sandwiches!) on a wall next to a field. And you know what? She's right. It was lovely.

Indeed, if you took your kids to Lapland, there's at least a reasonable chance that their reaction would disappoint you.

I honestly think social media has helped to create these mad expectations. It's quite hard to disengage from it but nonetheless important. By all means do nice activities with your kids, but trying to cram them all in isn't really about making your kids happy, it's about trying to live up to unrealistic expectations for yourself as a parent.

First world problems.

Ha. Where I live they've just started putting up the Christmas lights outside shops. We drove past and I said "oooh look, pretty lights!"

My 10 year old replied "but surely it isn't good for the environment leaving them on all night?" 🤣

I had very very low key Christmases as a child and they were fantastic and magical.

All that is alien to me and my family and yet for 60 years we have had three generations of lovely Christmases.

My favourite memories of Christmas as a child were
The church Christmas fete, santa was there and we got a present.
Midnight mass and the life size crib in the church.
The food on Christmas day, especially the tins of biscuits Granny posted from Ireland.

We didn't do all those things and my DC have had great Christmases. However, there's plenty of time if you do want to do them. Mine are young/mid teens and would love to go to Lapland or Disney at Christmas.

No, of course not. I wouldn’t dream of taking my DC to Lapland or Disneyland. I’ve never heard of a Christmas lodge. I’m sure that most children prefer being home at Christmas.

No. What an odd thing to worry about.

I've never heard of a Christmas lodge and I'm not even going to Google it, it sounds ghastly.

Village hall Christmas fayre and the occasional look at Fenwick's window if we happen to be there and there isn't a crowd here and yet my children have managed to get to teens without feeling like they are missing out.

We have been to Lapland twice but not for anything Christmas related. Full disclosure there!

We have never been to Disney and thankfully none of them want to. We have never been to centre parks or similar.

We did once go on one of those steam train polar express things when they were very little. It was expensive, it was cold, it was a very short train trip then lots of queues, they didn't care, and the father Christmas was no better than the village hall so never bothered ever again.

What your children will remember is fun with YOU. Snuggling down at home, having a laugh, playing games, watching home alone and repeats of the various animations that have been done of the snowman and the Julia Donaldson ones. They will enjoy going for a walk around the town centre after dark to see the lights and coming home for a hot chocolate or maybe having a hot chocolate out for a treat. They will enjoy racing out with the sledge when it shows and the feeling of getting changed in to dry clothes afterwards and having a hot drink and breaking out a board game. They will enjoy the traditions you make. The excitement of advent calendars and the house gradually getting festive as cards get given and put on the shelves, the stuff they make at school coming home and being displayed. They will start to associate certain foods and baking with Christmas and before you know it, it has turned in to a tradition and you all look forward to making it because it means Christmas has started.

Don't think you need to keep up with all the social media crap and marketing about special Christmas experiences. Most of them are a bit crap and chances are your kids with bicker, have an overwhelmed tantrum or need a wee at a crucial point.

You are never too old for a Disney Christmas . Added to which if you have Christmas loving children like ours you just carry on doing things forever.

You have to do what’s right for you! Yes we will do all those things, and they won’t stop when DD is “too old” because we have done all of those things as a couple.

But it’s what you make it. To many these things don’t matter. To others they do.

Lapland IS magical, and Christmassy, but TUI or whatever Lapland is not, OP. It is full of other people, and adults being "jolly" on the coaches and forcing you to sing cheesy made up songs. Don´t do it that way, do it when they are teenagers in February. They don´t even have snow everywhere there yet.

This post is really sad. When your children stop believing in Santa, is that it for Christmas in your house!? Is there no magic for the over-10s? Is magic only in queues of families and overpriced "organised" fun?

I have been sucked into some of that, and I get it, but by far the most magical things are making a gingerbread house (my DC take it in turns to smash it with their heads on xmas eve...) and singing loudly to bing crosby in the car all together.

the most magical things are making a gingerbread house (my DC take it in turns to smash it with their heads on xmas eve...)

Ha that made me chuckle 😁

Nope, our Christmas are magical every year but we have never taken the kids to Lapland or Disney or any of those big ticket things. We make it special in the traditions that we have and the time we spend together. For us Christmas isn't about those things it's about us as a family.

What you've done is look at one or two Tiktok or IG reels and the algorithm has started delivering you hundreds of the things.

No. DC are 10 and 13 and we have never done Lapland and Christmas Lodges. Done Disney too many times but only because my parents live near one. It lost its magic if you go every year. DC1 didn’t want to do any of the rides in Fantasyland and remembers the shows. They don’t want to queue to see Mickey or Princesses either.

So no, none of these matters.