to ask how much you spend on DCs christmas presents?

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Just that really.

DD is 2 & have finally decided what to get her. Adds up to around £70 in total.

how about the rest of you?

Probably about £100 on 2 year old DS.
Have spent £50 on a micro scooter which i think he will get a lot of use from. Have also bought some 2nd hand in the night garden bits on Ebay and by the time he gets some new clothes will easily be £100

Happy Christmas to you too

Ignore me. It just makes my teeth itch when people open their posts by divulging how much money they have when other posters are clearly struggling to put food on the table. I find it distasteful but that's my issue not yours.

I hope you have a lovely day Please ignore my grinching

It has nothing to do with green eye mrsEBruce - and its a bit patronising to suggest people are jealous of you just because they disagree with you.

We could afford to spend more on the DC but for various reasons choose not to. My issue is not how much you or anyone else spends on their children, it is absolutely none of my business.

What irritates me is the insinuation that its impossible to 'do' Christmas on a smaller budget and even worse that the kids will have a crap xmas if they don't get hundreds of pounds worth of presents.

I can 100% guarantee you there will be no disappointed little faces in this house on Christmas Day

There are geen eye comments on this thread in gereral not at me i never said that i have never tried to make anyone jelous thats not my style.

Yes all children wake up happy no matter whats spent

my god i google this subject yest out of curiosity found mumsnet and joined. I thought our budget was run of the mill clearly not im not trying to be harsh saying i would struggle with smaller buget believe me if i could give them what i wanted with that amout id be a happy mummy i think bugets may be reconsidered next year

sorry if i came across otherwise

I have spent about £650 - £700 on 3 dc including ds1 aged 21, because I can remember so many years when we were skint.
I think you do what you can, when you can. I never bother what others do its up to them.
I do agree that dc are happy with whatever FC or family members buy for them. Sometimes the cheapest gift is the one they love.
I would also never get in debt for xmas.

I almost dare not add it up...

Probably £100 on main presents and £50 on stocking fillers. Dobuy them through the year though.

Nah I'm sorry mrsEBruce - it was the other silly post that really pissed me off, not yours.

Hope you all have a great Christmas

We are all much more materialistic than we like to think we are. Some of the figures here are just.....unbelievable. Why would you even spent over £10 on a baby?

Aww there's some pretty mean comments about 'disappointed sad looking faces' on here. Christmas really isn't about the amount you spend on them. I remember one year we had just moved house, my maternity pay had just ended and things were tight, really tight. DS1 was delighted with his £40 worth of toys from ebay and the pound shop. Never once did he say he was disappointed or look sad. He was ecstatic with all the toys we had managed to get him and was very grateful.

Now money has settled down and we are much more financially secure we spend around £200 on each of our DS's plus about £50 on DS2's birthday which is Christmas Eve. Most of our money goes on presents for others and food for Christmas Eve party and Christmas dinner etc. We like to have people round and make them welcome! I love Christmas BUT I am very aware that we could spend a lot lot less and the children would be just as delighted and excited.

DD1 (4) about £100 including clothes and stocking
DD2 (2) about £70

I e-bay to buy most things, as they have no idea what's new and what's second hand. However, a couple of weeks ago I had a look through the pile, counted 14 things for DD1, 12 things for DD2 (including stocking stuff, minus chocolate and satsuma) and had a panic that it was all clothes and useful stuff. Therefore DD1 is now getting an innotab, and DD2 is getting some Thomas stuff.

I could spend more, but won't. DD1 has a birthday in January, so she may get a new scooter then, which would be another £100. If she doesn't want a scooter she will only get a couple of bits as she is having a party.

I hardly give them anything from September onwards.

On ds (12) about £60-70. Mostly books, a board game, sweets and new pyjamas. We can afford a lot more (since the thread has now gone along these lines) but he doesn't really want or need anything. He will get an Xbox game from gps and maybe money from other gps if they can't think of anything. It's a funny age for boys, I think, where they don't really want anything. Most we've ever spent is £100 as, for eg, the year he got his Xbox it was from us and both sets of gps.

On the sad little faces point though, my parents were skint when I was young. I remember being about 8, and still believing. I wanted a My Little Pony stables and all the horses.

I got one measly horse, and it wasn't the one I wanted.

I wanted a 'Baggy Bag' and I got one in mustard.

I got a paint by number of a horse, and looked at the pictures on the back and wished I had the cat one.

I was in bed with my parents, and I burst into tears saying ' I though Father Christmas was supposed to know what you want'.

When I look back it must have broken my mothers heart, and I feel ashamed, but I can remember what it was like to be a child who didn't get anything they wanted.

It has nothing to do with lifestyles and incomes- a kid is a kid. We're all born equal, right? So how can it be more reasonable to spend £1k on a child than it is to spend £20 on the same child?
I'm either confused and happy to be put right or equally happy to be thought of as insufferably judgemental on this point (since that seems to be the standard retort on MN whether relevant or not......).

Can i ask why its unbelievable to spend over £10 on a baby for christmas when its costs a hell of a lot more a week for nappies etc for them? Im just curious to this im not looking to get into one of the so many slatting matches already on this thread?

I just think that £10 is a LOT of money really. You could go into the charity shop I worked in and get loads of stuff, far more than a baby who'd be more interested in the wrapping would ever need to have happy memories of Christmas, we priced stuff really cheaply. Babies don't know what other babies are getting, they don't take stock of how much they get, it's possibly the only few years they are simply not going to care, their expectations are zero....so why would you raise them so high?

I guess its my own need to give them too much. I cant say no lol. Tbh i thought we never spent that much on her now slightly embarressed and dh has cut her birthday in feb as clearly were going mental lol

Oh, and I was mostly talking about the £100+ on older children being shocking to me to be honest (not talking about expensive sports equipment- more X boxes, fancy phones, tech in general, loads of "stocking fillers").

What happened to getting a few specially chosen presents- I see threads all the time here, "what would do 13 year olds want for their birthday?"- it's just buying for the sake of it.

My thoughts, exactly, quirrel. Ds doesn't want or need anything. You can only play with one thing at a time. Growing up, if you wanted a 'big' present in my family (eg stereo or something) you had to have it from all the relatives (even if it could have been afforded just from parents) and you definitely wouldn't get something that big every year (some things would be from all relatives and for bday/xmas together).

Im afraid i enjoy the shopping, wrapping and filling the living room on christmas eve i guess it was done for me now we do it for them my dc are very lucky and do appreciate there gifts wich makes it worth while there smiles on the mornings my hubbys fav thing ever i guess we match that with what we spend

Crikey, I spent a lot more than £10 on my eldest for her first Christmas, probably more like £50 but it was well within my budget and I bought some lovely toys that were played with for the next 18 months or so and then by my second as well so it was hardly a waste of money.

I'm a big believer in spending what you want, within reason and within your budget. What everyone else spends is their own business.

Not everyone spends £10+ a week on nappies. But what has that got to do with Christmas presents?