To think Christmas Eve boxes are absolutely ridiculous and unnecessary?

[dressinggownwearer]

Just that really. Do children not get enough at Christmas without giving them even more the day before?! What are Christmas Eve boxes even for/full of that can't wait until Christmas Day?! Am I being mean and a grinch or do people agree?

There's no reason not to wear Christmas pyjamas all year (unless the weather is too warm.)

I remember one year we had a big family reunion-get together and rented a big draughty holiday house, for a rainy August holiday.
6 of the 8 children appeared at breakfast in last-year's Christmas themed pyjamas, which they all thought was hilarious.

Actually my niece, who has an early November birthday, frequently appears in Halloween themed pyjamas throughout the year.

It's just a pattern on some nightwear, why not keep wearing until it is outgrown.

@Qwertywerty3

It’s a ridiculous tradition. The worst thing about it is the environmental impact. Buying christmas PJs is surely the worst thing of all. Who needs a pair of PJs just to wear for a couple of days? And why can’t they just wear the same Xmas PJs that you bought last year? Kids don’t grow that quickly.

People are defending it by saying they don’t spend much money but that totally misses the point. This is just more tat to end up in landfill.

@Qwertywerty3 My kids wear their Christmas pyjamas throughout the year until they longer fit, so I don’t see it as wasteful at all, and as my children are quite young the same clothes that fit them last year certainly don’t fit them a whole year later.

The things I put into my DC’s Christmas Eve box don’t go to fill up landfills either as I reuse most of the things that go in there each year such as the plate for Santa’s treats, mugs, stockings etc, these things hold sentimental value to our family so it wouldn’t be right to be new every year & when my children have grown up I will most likely hang onto those things or pass them onto my DC to give to their children if they want to. Everything else I put into the box is usually food related and therefore consumable. I think you’re unfairly assuming that everything that goes into a Christmas Eve box is plastic tat that gets binned and repurchased each year when that’s not the case at all.

YANBU. I have never done it and never will do it. We are never home on Christmas Eve as we do stuff. Christmas Eve used to be spent visiting grandparents who had a big buffet style family drop in sort of day, then carols round the tree, a quick drink in the pub with friends, then to my parents to put DD to bed and wrap her presents.

After losing my last grandparent, we started a tradition of going to the pantomime on Christmas Eve (this year has obviously been postponed to next year).

Each to their own, but I don't consider it a necessary part of Christmas (neither do I do the elf thing).

I get this & understand there's no need to give these privileged kids any more. However the tradition of new pjs or new pants on Christmas Eve is really nice actually.

Name a Christmas tradition that isn't ridiculous and unnecessary! YANBU. Hopefully the generation getting all this nonsense will be more minded to ditch it all as absurd and distasteful.

@RonaRossi

I think it’s a load of crap, whatever you put in them - whether it’s £2 tat or ‘proper’ presents.

Part of the joy of Christmas Day is the excitement, the build up.
As a child, I remember the toe-curling, can’t-wait-any-longer, ants in your pants pure excitement of waiting for Xmas Day. It’s magical and unbearable and wonderful, that wait, as a child.

Regardless of what’s in an Xmas Eve box, the point is the same - a present to unwrap/open, a box of ‘stuff’ to tide you over until the main event.

What a way to ruin it. I don’t understand why anyone would choose to do this at all and I feel sorry for the kids who never get to experience that last wonderful, unbearable, magical wait of Xmas Eve.

I get the impression that they're more to increase the anticipation by making the night before more of an event. An appetiser doesn't ruin the experience of the main course. Clue's in the name. That's why it's usually pyjamas, film, night before type of stuff.

Nonetheless, if that's not your thing then fair enough. But really, you feel sorry for kids who have it? Even though many people on here have explained that they do enjoy it and it doesn't ruin anything for them at all, quite the opposite? And you "can't understand" why they feel that way? It's beyond your wit?

If you ask our grown up daughter the memory that has lasted of Christmas (other than family) it is the 'Twas the night before Christmas' book in her Christmas eve crate sitting on top of new pjs. It's a happy memory for me too, I remember the day I bought that book 30 years ago in Fenwicks. We still have it. I don't think I've robbed her, or our granddaughter of a magical Christmas memory. Our traditions evolve and we add new ones. We also leave our trees up till new year, nowdays it seems popular to pull them down boxing day. Again, each to their own, it isn't for me to judge another familys Christmas.

@TheKeatingFive

but you must admit the shops are choc-full of plastic and glitter pre-Christmas

Which would exist regardless of Christmas Eve boxes.

Take issue with the actual problem

I'm afraid it just seems extravagant and unnecessary to me, not because I'm unfestive, I've just found no correlation between the number of presents and how much we enjoy ourselves.

The existence of the Christmas Eve box may have no bearing at all on the number of presents. Plenty of people have talked about how they distribute them slightly differently.

There’s nothing wrong with the actual concept. Like anything else it can be good or bad in its execution.

It’s the lazy thinking that assumes ‘tat’ that I take issue with.

Some people might take on new traditions in a way that allows them to spend the same amount on the same number of presents but just distribute them differently. But most of these 'traditions' don't just spring up from someone having a lovely idea about making Christmas more special. They are cynical ways to persuade people to spend more. You might choose to do that in a responsible way, buying ethical presents or things that can be recycled, etc. I'm sure there are others who make presents or buy second hand, but I just don't see that among my friends, neighbours and people I see out shopping who are clearly going down the tat route, whether from choice or affordability. I am taking issue with what I see as the actual problem - rampant consumerism.

It's just another excuse for shops (especially supermarkets) to sell a load of unnecessary toot that goes out of date on Boxing Day. New mugs for Christmas hot chocolate and a £2 game ffs......

i am taking issue with what I see as the actual problem - rampant consumerism.

Well take issue with that then.

Plenty of Christmas Eve boxes are not that. Plenty of regular Christmas spending is that.

I didn't do this but I think kids would appreciate gifts spread out more rather than all in one go, so I'd have given pjs and an annual/hot chocolate instead of giving them the next day with other presents. So they wouldn't have been getting extra presents overall

Just a few points for clarity.

Hot choc on Xmas eve is usually a bit special. Those dippers, different flavours etc

I have only ever bought 1 christmas mug.

I use a gift bag so it packs flat and can be re-used a number of times. I only bought a bigger one when DS’s pjs became to big as he grew to fit in the old one.

The pjs I buy are regular winter ones. Kids grow. Most will need new pjs every year.

People talk about competitiveness. I have never posted on SM or discussed Xmas eve boxes (other than on MN) that I can think of (unlike the elf on the shelfera). I don’t think DS has discussed with friends either.

People say it is gimmicky but I don’t see it. Posts on here show it has been around for years. Maybe without SM or MN you wouldn’t even think about doing it. I haven’t seen shops plugging it but then I don’t go to shops much.

I don’t spend more on DS ocerall because he has a Xmas eve box.

It’s a nice thing. Leave it alone. Some right miserable feckers on here today!

...I feel sorry for the kids who never get to experience that last wonderful, unbearable, magical wait of Xmas Eve.
Jeez, really? Save your pity, my kids have a brilliant Christmas. For ds, one of the things he absolutely loves, is the cardboard box left on the doorstep filled with the Christmas veg, hiding a pair of pyjamas and some chocolate...he spends half the blimming year working out how he is going to trap the elves that deliver this box. If I've destroyed his Christmas, then Mea Culpa.

I can't help but wonder if the vitriol against Christmas boxes (angry emojis! Actual sorrow for the poor children subjected to these monstrosities! The excessive waste!) has anything to do with the fact that on the whole, they really are filled with inexpensive stuff and are therefore perceived as something done by lower class people who can't afford all the expensive things that the middle classes like and which don't get this kind of judgement (as PPs like TheKeatingFive have mentioned).

I mean, it may not be class obsession masquerading as morality, but that would make it quite an exception on here.

Last year I would have agreed with you, byr you know what, after the miserable fucking travesty of a year we've had, which has absolutely turned many children's lives upside down, then crack on with the flavoured hot chocolate and the glittery bedsocks for the love of Christ and all the angels

I feel sorry for the kids who never get to experience that last wonderful, unbearable, magical wait of Xmas Eve.

Yeah, the hot choc and the dvd fucking ruins it all for them. It’s a total travesty. 🤣🤣🤣

@HazeyJaneII

...I feel sorry for the kids who never get to experience that last wonderful, unbearable, magical wait of Xmas Eve. Jeez, really? Save your pity, my kids have a brilliant Christmas. For ds, one of the things he absolutely loves, is the cardboard box left on the doorstep filled with the Christmas veg, hiding a pair of pyjamas and some chocolate...he spends half the blimming year working out how he is going to trap the elves that deliver this box. If I've destroyed his Christmas, then Mea Culpa.

Mine have always been very excited 😀

I do have to wonder at the type of person who thinks its Ok to tell parents that they are ruining Christmas for their children and that their children should be pitied

And that goes all ways...However people feel about Christmas eve or Christmas day

@TheKeatingFive

I feel sorry for the kids who never get to experience that last wonderful, unbearable, magical wait of Xmas Eve.

Yeah, the hot choc and the dvd fucking ruins it all for them. It’s a total travesty. 🤣🤣🤣

Its the pjs...they fucking ruin everything 😩

@ShebaShimmyShake - I couldn't agree more, judging by the comments on this thread. I suspect the word "tacky" is a catch all for anything deemed lower class of "chavvy".

We do a Christmas Eve box but have done for years - nothing in it except the usual fair - PJs, Twas the Night Before Christmas book, reindeer food, hot chocolate for the kids, Baileys for adults, Santa's magic key, toothbrushes, the reindeer plate etc. etc.

All good fun, no gifts go in there. But I'm very grateful to live in a country not obsessed with rampant consumerism or class-ism. Love Elf on the Shelf? Crack on! Want to spend $700 on going to Christmas Brunch? Knock yourself out.

I feel more sorry for folks who spend their lives judging the shit out of other peoples' choices...

I can't help but wonder if the vitriol against Christmas boxes (angry emojis! Actual sorrow for the poor children subjected to these monstrosities! The excessive waste!) has anything to do with the fact that on the whole, they really are filled with inexpensive stuff and are therefore perceived as something done by lower class people who can't afford all the expensive things that the middle classes like and which don't get this kind of judgement
Nothing to do with class from my perspective. I think that the huge push towards mindless consumerism adds additional pressure on parents to buy more and more shit for an ever growing list of 'celebrations'.

I feel the same way about the growth in cheap plastic dressing up costumes and tat for halloween/world book day / insert other event that apparently requires parents to buy lots of stuff that will probably only get used once

I quite like the sound of boxes where families get the plate out for Santa, read their christmas book, watch a film with hot chocolate.
What I don't like is the idea that each child seems to need their own christmas eve box, usually personalised, christmas pyjamas on christmas eve that they'll have grown out of, a multitude of gifts which are usually short term use that or novelty things that will be discarded and so on.

@ShebaShimmyShake

I can't help but wonder if the vitriol against Christmas boxes (angry emojis! Actual sorrow for the poor children subjected to these monstrosities! The excessive waste!) has anything to do with the fact that on the whole, they really are filled with inexpensive stuff and are therefore perceived as something done by lower class people who can't afford all the expensive things that the middle classes like and which don't get this kind of judgement (as PPs like TheKeatingFive have mentioned).

I mean, it may not be class obsession masquerading as morality, but that would make it quite an exception on here.

Absolutely agree

The idea that hot chocolate is some sort of treat puts me right off. Hot chocolate is over-sweet milky filth and MN is obsessed with it. It’s minging.

Hate all this competitive over-mummying that happens around any sort of event or occasion these days. We give ourselves extra shit to do and buy when we’re skint and too busy anyway, then complain we have to do everything. And before someone complains about the ‘over-mummying’ it is usually women who do this ridiculous shit. And bang on about hot chocolate.

I agree. I think people just have them to take instagram pictures.

@TheKeatingFive
I'm focusing on the OPs original question. I have no issue, as I already said, with what people choose to do.

But there is no doubt that it is an additional pressure on top of all the things you mention for families who already struggle. I don't know why you seem to have such a problem with that being pointed out.

Armi
You're right. I've never met anyone stressed about christmas eve boxes where it's a simple case of watching a film together and doing a couple of family traditions.
I've seen several people get in state / be involved in martyr moaning trying to make Christmas eve yet another #makingmemories worthy moment, which always sounds like they're inventing more jobs for themselves, finding more ways to find money and more reasons to complain about how stressful Christmas is making sure everything is 'perfect'