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

[Purplegreenredblue]

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?

One of my main Christmas memories was being sat at the children's table ( I'm the oldest of my cousins on that side of the family) and not being able to drink wine, I was probably 15 or so and my mum switching seats with me so I could have a glass.

My children remember visiting a local street to where their grandparents lived which had incredible Christmas lights, family meet up and my daughter stealing wine from glasses when she was about two and a half. I made her drink gallons of water until she sobered up. Looking back she probably only drank the dregs of a couple of glasses.

Who is this for? Your children or Instagram? Honestly, if you do one of those things one year it may be a lovely memory; of course it may not. It might be an expensive nightmare. My kids are older teens now but when they think of christmas it is only about seeing family, a Christmas feast, gifts and family games. We all love Christmas but we've never done any of that. It's a family time for us. I sometimes wonder if people do all that other stuff because they don't feel the joy at home.

Mine are teens, we've never done Lapland (shudders at the thought, utterly naff), nor Disney, nor center parcs. They don't feel unloved or that they have missed out.

These are not what makes Christmas OP. Kids remember you, what you did, how you made them feel. Smells. Watching movies. Traditions.
Those other things are an added extra, if you can do them. But they're not important.

My favourite memories are finishing school, getting the Xmas Radio and Tv Times, making paperchains and gift cards from last years Xmas cards with added glitter. The tree going up. The fantastic sense of expectation. The family all visiting on Boxing Day. I loved Xmas as a child.

I have money and time. I don't do all that stuff regardless.

So OP now that you have heard that you can have a perfectly normal but still full of great memories Christmas without breaking the bank and racking up air miles do you still feel everything in your list is a must do?

We have money and time. And I love Christmas. But for us the Christmas moments are the school fair, a local Father Christmas play, seeing the lights, buying and decorating the tree, making a wreath, making the Christmas cake.

We do have holidays whether then or at other times of year. But the kids like traditions much more than they like ‘experiences’ if that makes sense. Same at other times of year - they want to trick or treat on our own street, and do Easter egg hunts with their extended family. DS 7 is still grumbling we were away at Halloween this year.

Loads of families go skiing in Courchevel or Aspen every year. Others have horses and holiday twice yearly in the Seychelles and the Maldives.
Do you fret that you aren't providing these experiences for your dc?
Why not?

Thinking out loud: maybe if these experiences were available when parents were children, then maybe that would be their favourite experiences instead of the basic stuff?

Nope.

I'm another who could afford to go to Lapland etc and didn't bother.

Rarely seen such a unanimous thread. Almost everyone here thinks you are wrong OP. Drop the FOMO, your kids will be fine with normal Christmases!

Yeah, you're being a bit silly. Let's be honest.

I did none of these experiences with my kids, couldn't afford it anyway. They're teens now and don't feel they missed out.

Their favourite activity, to this day, is a walk across a muddy common on xmas eve and then lunch at a greasy spoon cafe.

So, what happens in the future? How will you “top” each year? How will you teach your children to enjoy the small things - you’re teaching them that happiness equals consumerism. Put down social media and actively enjoy the time with your family, not through a lens.

My DC’s are looking forward to having a tree and decorations this year. This time last year we were in the middle of a building project so had no room for “extras”. Enjoy the small things!

My parents once took younger siblings to Lapland for Christmas whilst I and second eldest stayed at home as adults.
They had an awful time, for lots of reasons and it cost an arm and a leg. We couldn’t care less that we didn’t go and had a great time at home doing what we had always done. Just with more booze and crisps 🤣.
Theres a lesson there.

I’m not sure why you’re so determined to hang on to this. Children like doing the same stuff at the same time, there is comfort in the familiarity. They also really like not having broke stressed out parents. All that fancy stuff is window dressing, it doesn’t matter.

Not at all

I didn't do any of these when I was a child, and Christmas was magical, nor do I do any of these things with my little ones.

No need to do these at all. Panto maybe or ice skating when they are older. And visits to FC when they're younger but that can be local.

It's like a buffet. You pick from what's on offer, you don't expect to eat it all

Never felt like that. My DC are grown up now and never went to Lapland, Disney, a Christmas lodge or on holiday over the festive season. They're fine and have never once mentioned that they felt they missed out.

When I was a child 40 or so years ago, most of the experiences you mention weren't even a thing. Christmas was still magical. Teach your DC to appreciate the small things. Nobody needs to go to Lapland or Disney.

These experiences are available to my DS and he's aware of them.

He still wants to do the 'basic' stuff as you describe them.

You seem very insistent that the only way to have a magical Christmas is to have these types of experiences and don’t seem to acknowledge the majority of comments

I really don’t get what you want out of this thread when you won’t engage in the conversation

I think this is fair. I know it’s the done thing to say kids won’t remember the big experiences. I’m afraid Christmas at a five star hotel in Malaysia when I was 8 is one that stands out to me!

But having said that, you still absolutely should not feel pressure about this.

The only thing I would really like to do is take both my kids to Lapland while they are old enough to understand and young enough to believe. Relatively small window there!

But Disney, lodge holidays? I don’t associate those with Christmas at all. I know lots of people do them, but they’re not a must-do.

No, never. If you really want to do them, do one a year then there will be plenty of time

We've got the money and had the time to do these things. We've been to Disneyland Paris - but in the spring. I wouldn't contemplate it at Christmas. I can't think of anything worse than squeezing onto rides with thick jackets etc on. We've also been to Disneyworld Florida. But, again, I wouldn't do it at Christmas - it's busy enough in the spring/summer months!

We did the London Winter Wonderland thing when DS was about 8 years old. For me it was like walking around a car park with stalls on it. Waste of time and money. But others love it. I don't so I stay away. DH and DS felt the same so we've never been back. We have done some lovely local markets and have been to Germany for the Christmas markets and that was magical - about two weeks before Christmas. DS was about 7 then.

Never done Lapland. My DSis has and it seems a lot of hard work. DS had never expressed a want to go there. If he had, we'd have probably gone.

We've done Centreparcs which was fine. We prefer a nice cottage with laundry facilities which Centreparcs didn't have, apart from a launderette type place, when we went. But not at Christmas nor a couple of weeks before (DS is in his final year at school now but there was no way we'd take him out before the holidays just to experience a cottage). We did have family elsewhere in the country so we would rent a cottage near them for a few days after Christmas so I guess that counts. We wouldn't have done it just to get a cottage experience though - this was seeing family.

Days out. Yep, lots of them. We'd go to a forest walk with lights and music in the week before Christmas, Santa's grottos when DS was young, a castle for the evening with stalls, lights, Santa etc. Definitely did all of those and still do the castle or forest thing. In fact, during Covid, the castle just put lots of Christmas trees in their grounds and we really appreciated them at a time when everything was shut. Changed our priorities to be honest.

This is one of the most depressing Christmas posts I have read on MN. It has made me remember a dream I had last night.

I dreamed that I had had a third child, still just a baby, and I wanted not to have had him, because the world has become a so much more awful place over the last few years that I didn't believe it was possible to bring him up to be happy.

I still feel a horrible anxious dread about Christmas, even though my actual children are grown. The awful feeling that if you don't make magic you are letting them down. That feeling is bad enough, and enough of a distortion of what Christmas should be, to make an entire family feel irritable, disappointed and sad.

But what you are reporting here is much worse. You speak of 'experiences' as things that are created by business and passively consumed by your family. You feel the need to collect them all, like different flavours of some crappy branded pizza.

I can imagine the tension among kids to whom it is unintentionally made clear in advance that such-and-such bought-and-paid-for day out will bring them joy and be the stuff of childhood memories. The disappointment when it is just another middling commercial fob-off. God, it is hard to be a child these days.

They're just lodges though, available all year round and probably look the same