How much would you say is enough for Christmas for a child?

[Glazerblazer]

if every child had to have the same amount spent on them, how much would you say is enough? Would you say less for younger children?

I would say £20 for a stocking and £150 - £200 for main gifts - I spend more that that in mine but I think that would be a nice amount.

Enough to achieve what? If it is parity with their peers then that will be be highly dependant on who they are? If it is to demonstrate love or a gesture to the season, then it is an unnecessary amount. If you are the type of family that takes it as an opportunity to kit your kids out with clothing and essentials, it could be too little.

It depends on your overall income and what you can afford. And it's probably not politically correct to say it out loud, but also how grateful and well-behaved your child is. If my child had been especially naughty I wouldn't buy them as much.

I spend around £250 in total and it's split around £150 on main presents and the other £100 between the advent calendar, Christmas Eve Box and stocking.

This works well as DD gets overwhelmed easily by too many things all at once.

I think that's a lot to be honest. I spend roughly £100 on each child. I have 4 of them. There's a massive difference between £400 and £1,000 on presents. I'm not going into debt for Christmas, and there is food, drink, other people's presents etc.

No one needs that much. As kids we got a stocking with small gifts.

As @Scrambledomelette asks, what do you mean by 'enough' ?

Quite frankly, those figures seems very high to me, and none of my dc seem to be traumatised or lacking in any way.

Depends some years ive spent £1,000 odd on my two other years Ive spent £100 maximum on each. Just depends on what they actually need.

The more they have the less they appreciate it and it actually means to them. A main gift and a couple of other presents is more than enough. It would of course depend on age and resources. But a child whose parents spend Christmas afternoon playing with them is worth 000s.

We do the much hated poem but don’t really have a budget. DC have yet to ask for anything too expensive (14 and 12 years old).

We always said Father Christmas only brings toys. It’s too cold at the North Pole for tech! That meant any techy gifts came from us. They were also restricted to asking FC for him to choose one of three ideas.

They are both planning letters to FC this year despite very clearly no longer believing!

It's impossible to say. You spend according to your budget. Rich folk may spend more but not always. Same as some poor folk spend too much and go into debt. Not sensible.

I would say £20 for a stocking and £150 - £200 for main gifts - I spend more that that in mine but I think that would be a nice amount
A bit of a daft statement?? If you think that’s fine, spend that. If you want to spend more, spend more.
Weird.

I’m talking about if every child had exactly the same budget. Theoretically.

Do you mean, every child in the country? Like communist Santa?

Enough is what you can afford and what you are willing to spend.

That will be different for everyone.

Completely depends on what you can afford.

Yeah communist Santa - a nice communist that wants all children to have a good Christmas haul.

But would all parents have to stump up the same amount, even if it left them indebted? Or is it just, this is how you would allocate it, 'if I were queen' type of thing?

Everyone's different.
Ours had what they needed throughout the year so never unwrapped socks, pyjamas, school related stuff, etc. They tended to grow out of bicycles outside the christmas period.

They got a big present from us, a wrap up and their stocking. Grandparents bought them presents also.

They never had enormous piles of presents because we didn't think that was acceptable.

Big presents were things like: dolls house, Barbie castle, DS, GameCube, Wii. The latter were shared.

They needed lap tops for school, so they were never christmas presents.

No the money would be given to the parents on the understanding that it was to be spent on presents for the children only. So perhaps there would have to be a further breakdown of an amount for party clothes etc.

Okay, then - I could get on board with your original proposal. I would be buying my kids things like laptops and bikes outside of the season, but I think it might be kind of nice actually.

The first thing to think about is how much you can afford. Then if you're spending a lot, do they really need whatever. DD is older now, but for us it's always been in the region of £60-75 including stocking fillers, unless she really wanted a one off thing that was more. My BIL had three children and money was really tight, so for them it would have been some cheap pjs/new top and a couple of chocolate bits, max £20 each.

For us, we really wouldn't want to be pressured into spending that much. DD has never gone without, and to be honest growing up had too much stuff by the time others had bought for her as well.

My experience is that it fluctuates. There are years where something like a games console would make the total spent much higher than average years. (A games console is a birthday or Christmas gift in my house )

Fair enough. Still not sure how we'd have managed to spend that on DD every year.

Children don't look at the price of the presents, they look at the size of the pile and how many there are.

It's only when they get older and into tweens/teens that they will be impressed at what it all must have cost you.

So on that basis you would not see that as being enough some years.

True but in reality money is finite - so there is always a cost.

I think £100 per child from communist Santa. Its a decent amount that will get something nice without being so much that the kids have too much that it becomes meaningless.