How much do you do for your kids Christmas presents?

[Niki85]

My partner and I are not aligned with this so I am curious how many presents do you give each child at Christmas? 🎁 🎅🎄This is regardless of cost, just the amount of things wrapped up, however extra details and context also very welcome 😁

It changed with their age. Under 3, just a few presents as they didn’t understand and we bought them a lot of things as they needed for their age throughout the year. Once they were a bit older and loved toys and things, we bought them lots for Xmas, probably 40/50 presents. We only put sweets and chocolate in stockings though.

Once they were teens it was less, although we spend more. This year they got between 10-15 things each and then cash.

Mine get a lot - they get very little thru the year and it all wrapped up - pants, socks, charging cables, all sorts of useful stuff and some funny daft things. That is how we have always done it and how my parents did - very working class northern UK. We love a massive pile of presents and everyone eats/drinks far too much.

@BigMingeEnergy that's really interesting as the budgets you describe there are actually pretty close to the national average of £420 (£472 per child aged 7-12, and £368 for kids aged 0-6). I was going to also do a post on budgets too.

I'm interested also though in the number of gifts. I spend well under the national average but only because I bargain hunt but I do have a lot of things.

@user23124 this is also how my Mum did it. She didn't want to spoil us throughout the year so we got EVERYTHING at Christmas, with usual things like clothes as well. This is what I would like to do but my husband doesn't understand it, he also got very little as a child despite coming from a very wealthy family

I haven’t ever bought a Ds clothing as a gift. Clothing is just essentials imo. As a child we used to get socks etc in stocking and I used to think it was a crap gift tbh. And we had loads of gifts so it wasn’t like socks were necessary, they could have just be bought throughout the year as normal

25+ for us. I didn't get much as a child so go overboard on mine. I buy throughout the year, if I notice something I think they'd love, I buy it and put it away. It makes december a lot less stressful and spreads the financial hit

Normally I agree but when they get older I see an expensive, non-necessary item as a good gift opportunity.

DD is a huge Taylor Swift fan and asked for a branded cardigan. No way I would spend that amount on an item just because it has her name and the name of the album on it.

@reluctantbrit - that’s understandable. Expensive non normal items . But standards slippers, socks, toothbrushes, pants, pjs just seems like bulking for the sake of it

My 3 are 7-13 so main presents vary. Eldest needed a laptop for school work so only got 1 present. Other 2 got 5 each including art/craft kits and Lego. Stocking from Santa with smaller bits like chocolate, smellies, t-shirt, book and a inflatable light saber each.

Around 20 gifts each from me, we don't see my extended family, and exh family send vouchers. So that's it - plus a stocking which is sweets and stationary, and a Christmas Eve box which is a book, socks, mug, hot choc type stuff.

The main presents are stuff they "need" so this year they both wanted new phones. Last year they didn't have a main need so had more smaller things.

One is at uni and so had things to take back like nice baking stuff, sandwich toaster, new hairdryer. The other is leaving school so I bought loads of clothes and some trainers, now he'll be out of uniform. So generally stuff I would buy anyway at some point through the year.

Definitely spend more now they are older! But I spend less on them throughout the year now they don't do clubs, no childcare, don't grow out of clothes etc.

I usually wrap up 15-20 gifts for each of my children.
They include things like a bag of chocolate coins, a bath bomb, a chocolate lollipop, socks, pyjamas, pens, books, puzzles etc. i probably spend around £150 per child ordinarily. They get a mix of practical and fun things. It's all about the unwrapping though, so some gifts might get split up to create more parcels.

@Scentedjasmin this is exactly it! I tend to add "normal" things into the mix like clothes, and I put babybels in this year which was a big hit 😂

DH who comes from a much better off family than me thinks one gift at Christmas for kids is quite normal, whereas I got sacks full of cheaper gifts indeed clothes etc

We compromise
Stocking with sweets, a couple of small gifts
A gift from Santa
Two gifts from us

Family on my side - my parents send small cheap gifts (often several) and give money. My sister buys a gift for each of them

In laws tend to one cheap gift and his sister sends a gift for each of them.

It was plenty and I don't want to get to where I was as a child when as a young teen I was disappointed to no longer get a great big pile of fun presents.

@TheDisillusionedAnarchist this is interesting to me as my OH is also from a wealthy family and they have fewer but full priced bigger gifts (but also interestingly a much lower budget).

My family had lots of presents but cheaper as you described, my Mum was the queen of bargain hunting and getting stuff second hand. She'd separate stuff out so there was more to unwrap as that was the fun. I never got disappointed by smaller piles of presents but my brother did as he got into more expensive gaming as a teen!!!

Mine had 10 presents each. Some smaller items, crafts, make up etc and a couple of items they had asked for such as decent headphones and a bike. I would actually like to cut it down to 5 but it looks abit sparse so I'll wait until they are a touch older before doing that