Feeling so sad about kids Christmas lists

[drivinmecrazy]

Normally our kids (not so much kids than young adults) would ask for the moon on a stick and we’d strive to produce that and a perfect Christmas.

this year, like many, has been tougher than most.

so I’ve given them a £200 budget, or there about.

they seem quite ok with that but I’m feeling really mean yet I don’t know why.

For context they are 20 & 24.

help me to feel better about this please.

we could indulge them more but luckily they’re not in need or want of big ticket items this year so it would seem a waste. If they were we’d obviously stretch for that.

one DD has her birthday just before Christmas so her birthday budget will remain unchanged obviously.

still can’t help but feeling a little bit miserly cos we could stretch things.

I guess I’m remembering their huge piles on Christmas Day when they were little but it’s so not the same 😞

Oh, blimey. I thought this was going to be you only having a fiver to spend on presents for small DC. These are adults we are talking about - they should be mature enough to cope with a token gift or even no gift at all. As it is you're spending a generous £200 - I genuinely don't understand what the problem is.

Genuinely cannot see why everyone is giving you such a hard time tbh. My kids are 20 and 15. DS1 is at Uni. For their entire life they have never got gifts off anyone apart from us. My parents gave them £20 in a card and DH’s put money into a savings account. DH’s sister doesn’t do Christmas and I’m an only child. So for 20 years I have given piles of presents. And no it wasn’t tat at all. Stockings full of useful but fun things even when they were younger, like character boxer shorts/socks or annuals.
Like I said, DS1 is 20 and although we have scaled back naturally as they get older, for example you get 1 pair of trainers for the same cost as 3 Playmobil sets, there will still be a pile of presents under the tree for both of them.
We can afford to do it, neither child really asks for anything during the year and I know they will love and appreciate every single thing that they get.
Perhaps when DS2 is an adult too, we will scale back more but I cannot see a pile of presents for him and then virtually nothing for DS1.

Sounds like my situation, but one is 19 the other is 32 and lives with her fiance and their son, so no matter how much I’d like it, having just my girls with a pile of presents each on Xmas day isn’t possible. DD2 definitely has a smaller pile, but I do a stocking as well, so there are lots of smaller things in that which compensates. For DD1, no stocking, but I did get her a beauty advent for her recent birthday, and DD2 and I have one to open here. So I suppose my point is that you can start new traditions which don’t have to cost the earth and can still make it all really special and exciting.

They're adults, why do they have a list? Honestly, this is ridiculous. Of course you like spoiling your children, but within reason! They are old enough to work for and buy anything they like more, they'll cope...

Could you not take out a loan, Op? To round it up to £500 each? @drivinmecrazy bit more substantial then.

You don't have to buy tat to fill out the present pile. Buy things they use and consume, their favourite food, stuff that won't go to waste.

I hope this is a sarcastic "joke"?

Think it must be the same in a lot of families, but they are a bit older at least.
Mine are 18 & 20 and I have had to say no to stockings (which they are gutted about as it's the highlight of their day) and just a couple of other presents each (budget probably 150 each). Husband been out of work most of the year and we are having trouble with paying the mortgage. So they are accepting. They know we do everything we can and have the 2nd going to Uni next year, so that's going to be a struggle.

Get some empty boxes and wrap them so they look like presents? You could leave a note inside saying 'surprise'

Or put what you do get them in larger boxes than they need.

Wrap up some of the Xmas veg so their pile so it is made bigger using wrapped potatoes and carrots.

This is something that you need to deal with in your own head. I'm almost 50 & my mum has always been about piles & piles of gifts. So much so that my husband refers to it as 'present fest'. What you probably can't get your head around is that nobody else wants it & actually are just tolerating it because they love you & don't want to upset you or seem ungrateful. We all hoped it would stop when my parents retired, but they have private pensions, which do well.

I keep a bag in my wardrobe of things that I strategically give to raffles & charity events because I will absolutely never use them or wear an item of clothing once so she has seen it before donating to charity (not always, but last year's jumper had to go as it made me want to scratch my skin off - it would have cost her about £30).

My DH & I give our kids their gifts in the morning, simply because otherwise we wouldn't see them open them & they wouldn't get to appreciate what they have. We don't see anyone open anything tbh, in fact I don't know why I wrap them. It would be easier to just send gifts to them via Amazon & gift myself more sleep.

I know that this is probably going to sound mean, but please stop to think about what your family really want. A few, thoughtful gifts mean so much more than a truckload of things that they now don't want but have to now find a home for. My DF actually told me & DH that he had to intervene regularly when I was tiny because I just wanted to play with the 1st thing I opened rather than keep having something else thrust at me to open. My second Christmas apparently took me until NYE to open my presents & nearly caused a divorce.

I fully expect to get blasted for this response, but I really am not an ungrateful person. I just hate how commercial & wasteful Christmas is. I have been experiencing 'presentfest' for almost 50 years, & I don't expect anyone to understand if they haven't.

I have read the OP's posts again and I really don't get what the problem is?

Spend your generous £200 budget on lots of small useful things?

I think maybe i'm just not in the same league when it comes to buying Xmas presents for my kids because I could get a lot for mine (late teen/young adult) with that budget 🤷‍♂️

Sad in so many ways.

I’d be over the moon with a £200 gift as an adult! I’d probably even feel a bit guilty for accepting it. Our parents give around £50 to us. My eldest is £18 and keeping her the same as the little kids around £500 mark for now, but when she’s older and has kids of her own, I fully expect to be spending around £50 and she should be grateful for that! It’s what’s around the tree not what’s under it! Also ur setting expectations for ur kids to be overly generous or extravagant with their own kids. They might feel like a failure if they can’t provide what you did for them.

I think one big issue here is you are not listening to them and respecting their wishes to not buy loads of stuff. You are doing what suits you because you want them to remain young in your eyes and by asking you not to do this they are saying please see me as an adult.

my mum is like this. Never listens to me or what I want or need and it’s really damaged our relationship. Just don’t exactly what she thinks is best is very self obsessed and hard to be around.

the fact that your adult daughter wants a jellycat would suggest she has got a bit stunted as a child which it sounds like you have enabled as your identity could be 100% mum

im a mum I get it but also we have to let our kids grow up so that they are ok.

Adult children aren’t getting gifts at all and GC just get a small amount of money. Why does everyone get so carried away and hung up on Christmas. It should be a day for families to spend time together not for spending. I would have thought that DC in their 20s would prefer the cash and a small stocking full of fun items.

Sounds more like you may be mourning the loss of their childhood years and the joys that brought to you all. Embrace the fact that they no longer need a big pile of presents, so what they do get is more needed and appreciated! Then, when christmases do start to look a lot more different (with partners, grandchildren etc in tow, maybe only staying a few hours) it won’t feel like such a change.

Peoole are actually doing it tough.

£200 pound equates to $405.50 AUD. Usually it is more than that.

There are people doing it tough. I think for the last Christmas I bought myself a pair of earrings at a shop called Mimco and put them under the tree and pretended my partner got them for me so that out child wouldn’t know I got nothing (again).

Despite promises to get me something after New Year I never got anything. And he has money.

They were not expensive earrings and I had bought them on sale months prior and saved them to put them under the tree.

People are going to be reading this thinking you’re being utterly ridiculous. I am one of those people. Some people are spending their first Christmases alone. Some are homeless. Some can’t afford to actually eat. There’s a mother reading this who is hoping she can find something to wrap for her young children because she has no money to buy anything. You need to grow up.

Last year I bought dd and dh a cordless vacuum for Christmas . This was far more use to them than stuff and clutter itms

This isn’t about the presents, is it?

Have you thought about why you have this need to to give them piles and piles and presents?

What are you trying to achieve?

Some possibilities…

1. you had a childhood where money was tight so you’ve always made sure that didn’t happen to your children so they didn’t experience what you did (which was probably seeing your parents stressed/arguing about money rather than not having things. Plenty of people have no money while not making it a thing for their kids).

2. As they’re older you’re upset that they’ll leave and won’t come back and you want to hold onto what family life was like when they were young by recreating the magic years. Totally understandable, but our children have to be given the space to be their own people.

3. You have a poor relationship with money and spend too much in order to compensate for feelings of inadequacies etc.

Christmas should be about spending time with people and taking stock of our lives. As children get older, Christmas changes. Create some new traditions and don’t make them feel burdened by ‘having’ to do your Christmas. What happens when they have children? Are you going to insist they still come to yours and start buying piles of presents for your GC? Will your DIL/SIL have to not go to their parents in order to keep you happy?

You’ve already said you’re going to probably end up buying more things anyway and that they tell you not to. You’re ignoring their wishes in order to make you feel better. That’s not good. Maybe take a step back and have a think about why you have this need to buy so many presents.

THIS ⏫

I posted days ago but I can’t get over this post really, it’s so tone deaf to people who are dreading Christmas because they can’t afford to live as it is. I’ve recently seen an appeal by the Salvation Army about helping people who are alone and making sure vulnerable children get gifts - perhaps your £200 per adult would be better spent in this direction

OP you're going to a nightmare about your kids wanting to spend Christmas with someone else. Be careful this doesn't turn into everyone doing everyone to please your prefect version of Christmas - keep up, things change - it's not always for the worse.

The last big gift I had was a laptop when I was 19. Every Christmas since has been a budget of £100. I've survived. Sometimes I've been given a stocking mainly as I think they like that.

Why don’t you go to a make a wish tree and choose a bunch of things for kids who actually aren’t getting other gifts?

What exactly would the “fun” things consist of? Bet it’s just tat, really…
And they’ve specifically asked that you stop inflicting it on them 🤦‍♀️