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 😞

OP, mine are 25 and 17. DH and I gross 6 figures between us and we have never spent more than £200 each on them.

Just don’t t buy the unnecessary stuff and you’re fine. One nice gift of c. £100 (ours prefer cash!), one gift of £50-60, and then two or three smaller things, but not tat. Decent socks, not novelty ones, box of Lindors etc.

Mine are 18/20 and they will get 100 each .

Im sadder about that fact that they just want money (not even vouchers )
DD wants her hair done (she’s at uni and can’t justify a pricey cut )
Son will probably spend his down the pub 😔

I will get them a couple of little bits too (toiletries / sweets / slippers )

From a young age we have never given our kids huge piles of presents (mostly because we didn’t want a house full of tat but more so because we didn’t want to set the expectation of it every year - without knowing what the finances of future years would bring )
How about setting some new traditions eg quiz / game (im Getting mine cards against humanity ) for some laughs

Ours had the Bog Box Present when they were little .
Something exciting about a huge wrapped gift .
We bought a Sylvanian Family Recency Hotel for DD one year , trying to hide that box !
DS had a big box of cars, Lego or Power Rangers .
That was where the excitement was , not a huge pile .

Absolutely no reason for you to feel bad. Putting aside what's affordable this year or not, Christmas evolves into something a bit different in the kid-free gap you are currently in anyway. Just try to make the small inexpensive things more thoughtful, have slightly different food, a slightly different routine, maybe a cocktail on Christmas Eve that you wouldn't have had when they were little. Just be a little imaginative in an inexpensive way that speaks more to their current age. They'll appreciate that just as much. You may be feeling nostalgic about when they were little but they probably aren't.

I agree that I have bought into the huge pile stuff when my kids were young, but now they are in their 20s that doesn't happen.
Me, OH, DD and DS buy each other modest gifts, but things that show we listen, understand and care.
A home made or £10 gift has brought me to rears literally because that family member knows and understands me.
I keep a little notebook with me and from September onwards make a note of possible gifts thatt pop up through conversation.
My daughter thinks I am psychic lol, as she opens a gift on christmas day wondering how on earth I knew she wanted to read a particular book or try a certain new cosmetic.

My mother however is a different story- she buys my now adult- children heaps of presents, literally 60 gifts each.
TBH it spoils the day. Few are gifts that they want or need, yet have to go through the process of smilimg, thanking, saying polite things.
My daughter gives me a subtle look when she opens stuff that says " charity shop please", I quietly bag it up and put in in the boot of my car when she leaves to go back to her flat.

I have tried many ways to curb my mother's giving, but always met with " you are a meanie" or " I can spoil my grandkids if I want".

What my mother does is prioritise her pleasure of giving over other's pleasure of receiving. It is a two way thing of course, but OP search your motives.

OP think about your motives. Is this overgiving some way of satisfying your own need to give?
May also be driven by scarcity anxiety. I grew up in poverty - food was scarce. So if I cook I always make far too much. so everyone can eat as much as they want. As a child we often left the table still hungry.
It is a hard habit to change, but think about what your kids actually want. One of the lovely thgings about having adult children is that we can have adult discussions.

I thought the same! £200 is a brilliant budget!!

lol because 200 is such a paltry amount
that’s my upper budget good or bad year

If you have money to spend and want to spend it why don't you do something like the dunelm scheme where you donate gifts children have asked for?Or even some other kind of charity Xmas present giving thing? I'm sure you could google to see what's going on in your area and where you could help. For instance you could phone a womens shelter and ask if they have a similar scheme where you could help.

If not then maybe you need to look at counselling re your spending habits and what fuels them. They will be your children forever but they are adults now. You are respecting their choices and that is a good thing. Embrace that your Christmas will look different but be no less special.

Depends what your definition of tat is I suppose

£200 for a young adult is a generous amount! You need to readjust your expectations etc.

My dd is 22 and Ds is 13. We’ve always spent about £200 each at Christmas. We could spend more but that’s plenty!

I think you are mourning the loss of having a young family Christmas most of all.
Many of us have wonderful family Christmas memories to remember, when our kids were young and everything is shiny and magical - and it absolutely is not about how much you spend. Or whether you can afford to buy brand spanking new, surely many of us can remember second hand bikes for example, and are still able to remember the thrill of getting a bike not its provenance!

Take a deep breath and remember that your children are now grown up.
Those earlier days are treasured memories and Christmas celebrations will continue to change…

Be grateful for what you have - sorry, but especially in these COLC days you are being totally tone deaf - try talking in general terms, and leave the price-tag conversation out of it, for the sake of others.

They are 20 and 24 so surely this isn’t the first year that they haven’t had “a huge pile of presents”?! And don’t they have jobs? Obviously things change as your children get older but I don’t get why this particular year is so difficult.

'A huge pile' is for little kids. Who have large toys and books and aoft toys a rocking horse and a plastic kitchen.
Noone over 10 needs a 'huge pile'.
The fun of the hig pile is that santa comes and you see theit faces at a huge pile of presents. But ultimately they start ripping paper off and dont even remember what was opened first.

I still ask my children who are 22 & 24 (both still live at home) to give me a small list of ideas, I’d rather buy them one thing they want and need than just buy for buying Sake.

I totally understand how you feel. I love the ceremony of giving gifts but also get that your kids don’t want tat. Could you do something creative like still wrap up a huge pile of empty boxes with an escape room/ treasure hunt style clues in each one? Then have their actual presents locked away somewhere that they need to work out a code to unlock?

Then you’d still get the joy of all the wrapping and seeing the big pile and your kids will enjoy working out that you haven’t splurged on tat as they unwrap!

I thought this was the norm once your kids got a bit older. Mine are all mid - late teens and I’ve started to get less and I fully expect that by the time the youngest hits 18 it will be one decent gift each.
I thought that was normal

Christmas isn't about presents. Your DC are old enough to know that and to know that you love them. Surely they won't judge you by how much you can afford and their presents are worth?

You’ve literally said yourself that they have asked you not to buy your “usual tat” so they obviously didn’t want what you bought, I don’t understand feeling sad stopping something that didn’t even bring the “kids” joy? I understand parents getting carried away seeing the look on their kids faces, yours didn’t even want it! (Unsurprisingly at their age). Do you put it all up on social media or something?

Is this an ‘instagram’ thing where you post
look what I bought my kids for Christmas pictures

it’s sad not to see them come down to a huge pile of presents.

Urgh. Quantity over quality. Christmas should not be about piles of tat.

I was expecting you to say they were under 10. At 20 and 24 you are being a tad ridiculous. £200 per child is loads. Even for a good year. Even if they were younger.
Reflect on the fact that 3 in every 10 children in the UK live in poverty and will count themselves lucky if they're warm and fed at Christmas.

I think it’s understandable to miss how things were when they were little, and that Christmas doesn’t have the same magic now, but do you think you are replacing that feeling somehow with guilt about spending an objectively generous amount on adults? My second question is, will you be my mum please? 😂

I understand OP. Losing that big pile mentality is hard, as it’s just another sign that they are not little children any more. Choosing and wrapping and watching them unwrap is part of Christmas.

But they’re not little children and the transition had to start sometime. And there are lots of other parts of Christmas that mean as much if not more.

Agree.
Young adults and children are the ones who will have to bear the burden (in climate change and landfill etc) for our generation's excessive overconsumption

Good God, it's like a race to the bottom on here sometimes.

As for the uproar about adult children writing lists... the horror!
In my (wider) family, we all write lists then discuss between each other what we'll buy so everyone gets a surprise but it's something they actually want. So I suppose the surprise is about who's bought it, unless your my DH who forgets what he's asked for so Christmas presents really are a surprise to him!

Christmas changes so much when your kids are older. We're now at the stage where they aren't up super early, don't have things to make or new games to play with and more often than not, DH his working. It's different and not half as good as when the kids were little, sooooo excited and had presents scattered around the room ready to tear open.