AIBU as we can't afford all the christmas events!!

[peppajay]

I feel like a really bad parent at the moment as we cant afford to do all the Christmas stuff that all my friends are doing. We are a 2 parent, 2 child family with a mortgage - we moved last year to a bigger house and I also went back to work , we run one vehicle and my husband works full time and I work part time. We have spent about £30 each on the kids for xmas and about £300 on relatives presents. Me and my husband cant afford to give each other a present so we don't. We have booked to go the pantomime £51 and will see Santa at the church fayre. My DD's classmates and our friends seem to go to every Santa experience out there, as well as going for the hugely expensive Lego/playmobil advent calendars. We live in a town where there is loads going on and we cannot afford to do it. Kids want to see Paddington at the cinema but we cant afford to do it at the moment - surely the panto is enough?? They want to go to the cinema, ice skating 3 or 4 different Santa trips, posh advent calendars- my DD especially hates school on a Monday and had a panic attack this morning about going in - as last week she lied and said we went to London to see the Christmas lights because she thought going to the beach on the scooters was boring!!!! There are 2 particular girls in her class who every weekend go everywhere - they have prob been to every pop concert and London musical and there parents make sure they get the best so they can be the best. Money is no object as their children are worth every penny. I probably sound jealous and to a certain extent I am. Another friend of mine who do a lot of expensive things with their children say we need to get a credit card then you don't need to worry, but unfortunately both me and my hubbby had bad credit card debt when we met and it took us ages to pay it off and we said we would never let that happen again. We have one in case of an emergency but otherewise we never touch it. This weekend has been horrible as we are broke until pay day and yet again they have had to make do with free entertainment an xmas crafts workshop and a walk round a garden centres xmas wonderland. Wish I could them the world but I can't!!!! I know they are going to come out of school so sad again today after hearing about their classmates amazing weekends and I know it is our fault!!!! Should I just relent and put this stuff on a card or have them miss out??? :0(

Ok first of all, if you really feel the need to buy all these kids in the family a gift then just get them a selection box each, those ones for a quid each, if anybody moans then that makes them an ungrateful twat and you know not to even bother in future.

I come from a very large family, i have 20+ cousins, a good percentage of them have children, the only ones i actually buy for are the ones im closest to, who have 3 children between them. Wouldn't even cross my mind to buy for all the others, especially if i was too skint to buy for my own immediate family.

Second of all i read a good quote the other day that applies here, if you want your children to turn out well, spend twice as much time with them and half as much money

Seriously, these kids that get everything they want usually turn out to be spoilt and ungrateful

Am i the only one who doesn't get the drama?

Wont the 1000s relatives give you presents too?

You have just bought a nice, bigger house, spent 400 on presents, got tickets for panto etc and you feel 'inferior' ?

Start a thread for swapping presents/situations and i am sure someone will be happy to swap her cinema ticket with your new house, the panto and the 400 gifts.

I can fully empathise with your feelings here, though I do agree that spending £300 on the wider family, some of whom you don't even know, is something that needs to be knocked on the head. Think of some of the fun you and your little family unit could have on some of that money! That surely should be your main priority going forward.

In my family it has never been a tradition to buy for all of the cousins. We have never really known each other that well anyway. I like it that way.

Believe me I do know what it is like to be short of money and it can make Christmas a very stressful time. I was there myself for more years than I care to remember, and we will never be wealthy. You do have to set out your ground rules. Ours were to concentrate on the children, and as far as the adults were concerned just buy for the really close family (not going overboard).

It is probably true as others say that your daughter is picking up some of her negativity from your reactions. Possibly though, she is also beginning to realised that some of the wider family are being unfairly (if inadvertently) prioritised over her.

That said, I am not advocating that children should always be completely spoiled at Christmas. They do have to learn that we cannot always have exactly what we want. The life lesson that "money doesn't grow on trees" is a useful one, albeit hard at times for both children and their parents.

I agree cheap doesn't mean no fun, infact the opposite often true.

Yesterday we went to a lovely xmas fair borrowed friends NH card it was free. Went spent £3.80 on two teas, ouch!

Dd1,2 and 3 were not going to go to their xmas fairs as with 4, it can be££££. But dd1 went with friends and spent pocket money, dd2 is performing and helping on a stall school have done thus so people go, v naughty, dd3 is going as her gps happen to visiting so will take her and pay

Dhs work are holding a xmas party with santa for dcs which is free so he will take littlies to that.

Also dds football club have a party and santa for dcs, think its free. But will spend £5 on raffle tickets

Dd1,2 and3 will go to pantos at school, can't remember cost think was £30 and dd3 pta funds paid.

I would love to go to panto with them but moneys tight and they ate already going

We have a few dates with friend and dcs over inc new year and if funds allow we might go to harrods.

I've booked/planned quite a lot for Christmas this year, OP, but I've booked super early (some events as early as September) to try and ensure I don't feel like the costs hammer me. I've pretty much just booked 'cheap' local events and I am only a 2 person family. There's no way I could have booked some of the paid events as a family of 4, even though tickets have only been say £10 each. We've also been to/plan to go to some lovely free activities as well.

On the 15th November we went to our local town Christmas market and light switch on. My little girl had her picture taken with Santa, loved singing along to all the carols and generally had an amazing time. The event itself was absolutely free, though I did pay £5.00 for a Frozen balloon, £2 for her to go on the merry-go-round, £2 each for some lovely hot homemade soup from one of the stalls and £2.50 for a knitted elf decoration for our Christmas tree. So all in £13.50 and we had a fantastic time. You could go and spend nothing or go and spend a fortune. Do you have anything like this where you are?

Yesterday we went through to Ayr because the Coca Cola Christmas truck is on tour at the minute. They had carol singers, were giving out cans of coke and you got your picture taken for free. The day cost me absolutely nothing. My mum drove us there and we stopped off at a family members for a quick visit and some tea. Tour dates are here if you're interested. Just pop in your postcode and it will tell you where the nearest stops are to you. DD was mesmerised by the "magic Santa truck!"

On the 17th December my lovely little local theater are holding a big Christmas craft fair where you can go along and make all manner of things. There's tea/coffee/mince pies provided, you don't need to buy tickets and again, it's free.

On the 22nd December we're back at the theater because they're showing the Frozen movie, but it's the Sing-a-Long version. Everyone's encouraged to dress up and belt out the songs as loudly as they can. Tickets were only £5.00 each. Do you have a local theater where you stay? I had to book these tickets way back in October and they were selling fast, but double check what's on in your area. You'll likely be pleasantly surprised.

Last year I popped into Poundland and got some fab arts and crafts bits for dd and I to do at home. We had lots of fun making tree decorations and trawling through a Christmas activity/sticker book. I've been back in this year and picked up some more bits for us to do together. It might have cost me all of £3.00.

Christmas movies can be picked up for pennies in most supermarkets and Amazon. I bought Scrooged, The Polar Express and The Nativity all for under £3.00 each. That's a few nights snuggled up on the sofa with dd feeling festive sorted.

Pop into Poundland and rake the shelves for Christmas CD's. I've picked up a couple. DD and I spent Saturday night dancing about the living room and holding Christmas themed karaoke competitions, much to the amusement of any and all passerby's who did openly laugh at the state of us.

Things are what you make them. You don't need to put yourself into debt taking your children to one expensive Christmas grotto/play/musical after the other to make them happy. But I know, I know how much it can suck to feel like the pauper staring through the bakers window at times, Peppa. We seem to live in a time where we're in constant competition with each other - we always feel like we have to keep up with somebody. But the truth of the matter is, we don't. And we make ourselves miserable believing that we do. In all honesty, you will have more fun stripping away all that expensive crap and just getting back to basics with your children. Build a den, have a movie night, make homemade decorations, make and decorate Christmas cookies, etc. I promise you, that's the stuff they remember

Chin up and have some

Gosh. The Jones' really have a lot of explaining to do. Best to just ignore them and do whatever you want to do in life, and teach your kids to not give a F about what everyone else gets up to. Besides, dig a little deeper and you might find that Mr & Mrs Jones' with their two little darlings are two fights away from divorce and two weeks pay away from having their home foreclosed on them. Desire for debt will stress a relationship far more than staying at home and playing board games with your kids ever will. The joy of life is that you get to frame how your children see the world. You get to choose what they think a good. Christmas is like. Do you want them to think a good Christmas is one where you spend lots of money doing artificially pastiche biscuit tin 'Christmassy' things, or do you want them to think Christmas is about decorating the tree with Dad, making paper chains, playing boardgames and watching Tom chase Jerry because he stole his cupcake?

I can't believe you spent £300 on your relatives and £60 on your own family. Are you relying on the presents from relatives to top up the presents for your dcs ?

This is the real issue not what your dcs friends are doing.

What has the £300 spent on family got to do with anything and why is everyone so down on the op because of it? If she suggested that they all stop buying for each other she'd probably end up being the subject of some other thread about 'my evil cousin's wife is the grinch '.

Anyway it's irrelevant. OP you're doing a great job with all the free activities you've found for your children. Why on earth someone upthread said you're obsessed with money is beyond me. The issue here is your dd 's delightful friends who are completely spoiled and making your dd feel bad. Your children are learning the value of family and that money is not the most important thing in the world. As a child my family didn't have two beans to rub together. I don't think I went to the cinema till I was 11! I had an idyllic childhood with two parents that loved me and that is way more important than money. Teach your dd to answer back with confidence, 'oh we don't have enough money to do everything but I know they love me without all this consumerism and greed '. That'll flummox them

The £300 on family is the problem. Your dc are going without experiences they want to do so you can buy family stuff? I don't understand. I'd cut the entire £300 and then you could do all the things you want. Tell the relatives you are under financial pressure and could you agree no presents for a year. Too late for this year as it's done but I really can't understand your allocation of money at all.

Btw lego advent calendars are overrated. We had them one year. Not this year, kids just as pleased with cheapy choc ones.

Oh yes we also went to turning on of lights, was free

outrageous purpleroxy
lego calendars are awesome

OP, in the nicest way possible, why are your kids getting so worried and upset about all this? It sounds as though you do lovely things with them. It's not healthy for them - or you! - to care so much about what 'everyone else' (yeah, right) is doing. It also sounds like you care far too much about what your extended family think. The present-buying for everyone is ridiculous. Tell them you're not doing it, end of.

We are fairly well-off. We're doing one paid-for Christmas 'thing' this year. Everything else will be free or very minimal cost for craft materials etc. The kids have chocolate advent calendars. 'Everyone' is not spending a fortune on Christmas.

I feel really sorry for all these spoilt children who just seem to have a commercial "experience" of Christmas. Christmas was never supposed to be about spending lots of money and it's all just a big marketing con trick in my opinion.

There's lots of Christmassy things you can do which don't need to cost anything;

A walk round the village christmas lights display if you live on an estate or place where people trim up. (Free)

A walk in the woods to collect holly and greenery and then make your own wreath for the door (free)

Carol concert at your local church (free)

Messy church type Christmas crafts (ours is usually a pound donation but if you're skint they don't mind if you can't afford to put anything in)

Christmas crafts and baking at home

Get a Christmas DVD from Poundland- they can watch Paddington when it comes out on DVD

Get the Paddington books from the library and read them together

Where we live there are quite a few Christmas lantern parades which include Father Christmas and reindeer, all free and lots of gun

Your children will appreciate enjoying the simpler pleasures of this time of year and the impoverished ones are really their friends at school who seem to have everything.

I think pants, cinema and other shows are nice once in a blue moon, I think it's a very dull way to spend time as a family on a regular basis.

It's not interacting with a child.

Op your days out sound way more fun.

Growing up my parents didn't have much money, however I have a ton of happy memories from the free or cheap day out.

In Fact I learnt to swim in a river by my father. Didn't go to an actual pool until I was around 11.

Op, carry in doing what you are doing as it sounds lovely. I bet most of the other children in the school don't do half a much as these two children that your dd is focussing on.

I strongly recommend bargain hunting early for Xmas 2015. I shop throughout the year and save a fortune.

I also 'make' up small gift sets eg small toys etc get turned into a homemade advent calander. It's much better and cheaper than the shop ones.

I am sure its been said over and over but your spending a fortune on family but not on your own children, where are your priorities? Its lovely your dc want to see films and go to theatre I think thats great to do in winter....its culture...stop spending money you dont have on family and put your own children first.

Our household income is fairly high. We won't be doing any Christmas days out apart from school fair one Sunday in December. Both dh and I are up to our eyes with work at the minute. It usually is the case in December. I don't think my dc are deprived in any way, if they are they certainly have never mentioned it. I did actually manage to buy 5 advent callendars in the petrol station last night But seriously, our December will consist of Christmas movie nights, the odd walk to look at the lights, carol services and thats about it. Dc don't need all the crap and I just cannot fathom the pressure parents heap on themselves every year do stuff they feel they have to. It is actually ok for children not to have everything

A tip for the posh advent calendars, buy them in Jan when they are less than a tenner and put them in the loft for the following Xmas.

We're not doing a single day out, panto, etc. We're seeing family and spending christmas day with just the 4 of us. Presents will total £60 max for both DC's. Advent calenders cost me £2.50 each. They love them.

They will love it as DH will be off from work and we'll play silly games at home.

They will have no idea what their friends did over christmas and nor will they care. What matters is spending time with family and my DC's seem to realise that thankfully.

Advent calendars...I bought two wooden Xmas tree calendars with drawers and put a jelly bean and a forfeit or Christmas related question in each drawer. Dc love it, and is very inexpensive.

We are doing the panto on Xmas Eve and one cinema trip.

Is yor dd feeling happier about it all now, OP?

I agree with others who say it's best not to go overboard with Christmas, what you have already planned is plenty.

I think you have your present budget skewed. Tell your relatives you are not doing gifts and spoil your children.

Priorities and perspective, that's whats missing here. Not going to multiple XMAS events isn't a violation of their human rights. Your children have both parents in work, a roof over their heads, go to school and food in their bellies, everything else is icing.

You complain about your DD's boasting classmates but you have been reluctant to stop spending money on relatives that you haven't even met, all in the name of not wanting to be seen as the bad guys, what is that behaviour modelling? I'm sure those boasting kids are bitching about stuff they haven't got or done. Help your DD appreciate what she has and to focus less on what the Verruca Salt's of this world have.

Considering the world we live in there will always be something your kids will supposedly be 'missing out' on, it's an important life lesson for your children to learn that they can't have everything, simply because no one in this world can.