Hi me and dh have three kids 12,9 and 8. We were talking about Christmas the other day and we've agreed that we need to cut back this year for a number of reasons but whilst talking to my sister about it she seemed shocked and said bat she wouldn't dream of ever scaling down Christmas as her kids would be so let down! Well as it stands we have to cut back and these are the reasons why.
First off we don't have a huge disposable income between me and dh's infome, but we've always pushed Xmas to the limit and have sometimes had to put it on a credit card. Not always, but last year we did and we have only just finished paying it off this month! Our 12 year old ds had been horrendous this year, he's like another child, really disresptful, not appreciating anything, feeling like he's hard done by despite him having similar things to his friends and not wanting for anything. We don't want to punish him by cutting back but we want him to appreciate the little things in life and realise that life is not all about what you have or what you accumulate.
We have two dd's age 9 and 8. The 9 year old has everything a girl of her age could ever want, she is extremely appreciative and looks after her things but I'm worried eventually she'll go the same way as her brother. Our 8 year old dd is autistic/asd and whilst her behaviour has calmed down a lot from when she was 4/5 years old she still has moments were she'll destroy things. To be honest she doesn't play with toys as such and prefers special sensory objects, loves books, puzzles, Lego etc so has a room stuffed with toys that have gone to waste.
As well as this me and dh have booked three short holidays (Butlins, Park Reaorts and Haven) for next year, and a weekend away in Ireland for my dh's 40th. Now we usually can only afford one weeks holiday in the UK each year but dh got an unexpected bonus from work and a tax rebate this year so we used the money to book a few short breaks away as we really do need some family time. But we need to save up spends which will amount to around 2.5k, it may not sound a lot to some I understand but for us it's huge.
So for us to be able to afford to go away and to celebrate dh's 40th we need to save up a set amount each month and cut back a bit at Christmas. My eldest, like I said has become a bit spoiled and like I said unappreciative. My girls have so much already as we've wasted so much money buying our youngest toys that will never get played with. So AIBU in wanting to spend our money on something we'll all enjoy, having time away rather than spending it on one day which comes around every year?