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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

To ask what a Christmas Eve box is?

207 replies

Qpobb · 14/12/2020 08:12

I keep seeing posts on my local FB marketplace advertising "Christmas Eve boxes". No idea what they are, what function they have or what goes in them? Surely there are enough presents given out on Christmas day itself!? I have no DC, so perhaps something that isn't relevant to me... However, I am curious!!

OP posts:
PrincessNutNutRoast · 14/12/2020 14:23

@NerrSnerr

All very 2000s but there you go

@Bloodypunkrockers please tell me how to update Christmas to 2020? What on trend?

myhobbyisouting · 14/12/2020 14:49

@RufustheSniggeringReindeer

Since you seem to be very triggered by this I've just rung my mum. She's delighted to be able to remember that far back and she bought our box in Woolworths the year my younger brother was born. 39 years ago.

Previously she had wrapped a cardboard box just as her mum had done in the 60s!

Does that help you at all?

RufustheSniggeringReindeer · 14/12/2020 15:14

[quote myhobbyisouting]@RufustheSniggeringReindeer

Since you seem to be very triggered by this I've just rung my mum. She's delighted to be able to remember that far back and she bought our box in Woolworths the year my younger brother was born. 39 years ago.

Previously she had wrapped a cardboard box just as her mum had done in the 60s!

Does that help you at all? [/quote]
Oh good god

Im not triggered in the slightest 😀

In my 51 years on the planet ive only seen them in the last 5 years or so

I do Christmas eve boxes myself 🎄

RufustheSniggeringReindeer · 14/12/2020 15:16

I am happy to agree that thanks to your mum Christmas eve boxes are a definite thing and always have been

😀🎄

myhobbyisouting · 14/12/2020 15:20

It was just all the SHOUTING that made me think you were a bit stressed

She's happy to help. Can't remember what she ate yesterday, can remember buying our box at Woolworths.

I don't know why it was only when my brother came along that we were deemed important enough to her to have an actual bought one though. She claims not to remember that bit!

RufustheSniggeringReindeer · 14/12/2020 15:23

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

Qpobb · 14/12/2020 15:32

Well, this has got a bit awkward

OP posts:
myhobbyisouting · 14/12/2020 15:38

These threads always end up like this OP. As I think you might already know?

First time I've actually gone as far as to ask my mum about it though.

It's definitely got awkward as she remembers what we got in some of them and now I've found out some of my favourite things are not in her loft where I believed them to be. She's binned them!

BiddyPop · 14/12/2020 15:59

DD is 14 and we've been doing it all her life.

And in our case, it follows quite a spiritual part of Christmas for us as a family (lighting the Christmas candle and reflecting on the good and bad of the year finishing, and those no longer with us, finishing with a family prayer).

The funny thing is, while I have talked on MN for years about this, I don't think I have ever talked in RL outside of my immediate family (the ones living in my house I mean) about it. Because it is part of OUR Christmas, not anyone else's. And I have never taken a photo for myself, let alone SM purposes, of it.

But it's like a lot of Christmas things.

Some people do a lot, others do a little.
Some people have a very religious season, whereas for others it is a very secular celebration - and there are people at all parts of the spectrum in between.
Some people like huge family gatherings, some have small family celebrations, some want to spend it alone, some have smaller or larger gatherings of friends rather than family etc.
Some celebrations involve the roast turkey and all the trimmings, some have goose or beef or lamb, while others have a takeaway or a special meal that is festive to them and that they enjoy.

Some families have huge amounts of alcohol, others have none.
Some families have large tubs of Quality Street, some enjoy handmade truffles (or even homemade!), while others don't really eat chocolate or sweets.
Some love and some hate trifle.
Some only do small gifts, some only do gifts for DCs, some do Secret Santa exchanges, some do extravagant gifts even for adults.....

In some houses, Father Christmas/Santa/Santy/St Nick brings everything to DCs. In other houses, he only brings the stocking. In some houses, he brings a stocking and a (or a few) big gift(s), but all the presents under the tree are from various other family and friends. (In the first, "he brings everything" category, I mean literally that - there are no presents from DGM or Aunty Jane or Cousin Eric under the tree for DCs, even if the DPs in the house get presents from those people - Santa has brought everything even what had been from DGM/Aunty Jane/Cousin Eric etc).

Everyone is different.
Every family has different budgets, traditions, levels of faith, school and other local celebrations to facilitate/attend etc. Different places have slight nuances on how they celebrate or what a seasonal character might do (I know 1 Santa who arrives on a lifeboat every year, and another who goes to a local school on a fire truck, but another who just appears from behind a door into a school hall from the Principal's office....and some of those Santa's give gifts, or have an individual chat with the DCs, but others just enjoy time with the whole group of DCs telling stories and organise carol-singing by the whole group).

Everyone is different.

Do what you want and what suits your family circumstances, beliefs, budget and levels of stress.

Don't do more than you want or can afford to do.

The same as in every other part of life (holidays, weekly food shopping, choosing a school for DCs, etc....).

And if you can, accept that we are humans, so while we are quite similar, we are all different, and it's better to celebrate those differences that to rail at them.

RoughWinds · 14/12/2020 16:05

@EggBobbin

We have a traditional Christmas Eve Box every year. DH wanted to ban it after he KO’d my mum in the first round one year but she really worked on her form and came back much stronger in the next year!
Grin
YoniAndGuy · 14/12/2020 16:08

Just another way to ramp up the endless consumer vomit fest.

BUY MORE STUFF they now need a boxfull of crap on Christmas eve too.

BrumBoo · 14/12/2020 16:21

@YoniAndGuy

Just another way to ramp up the endless consumer vomit fest.

BUY MORE STUFF they now need a boxfull of crap on Christmas eve too.

And a Happy New Year Xmas Smile 🎶
Welcometonowhere · 14/12/2020 16:26

Honestly? I, uh, I agree with cherry

I don’t have a problem with traditions. I really don’t. But this is a very artificial one and it does put pressure on people to spend yet more money and to chase the elusive perfect Christmas.

I do find greed a bit unappealing. I mean yes, I don’t rigidly stick to four presents or anything like that and I certainly am not above indulging children but for all that ... there is a middle ground somewhere between ‘something they want, etc’ and ‘mountains of crap.’

RufustheSniggeringReindeer · 14/12/2020 16:27

I never understand how ppjs are crap

My eldest is virtually never out of pj bottoms, putting them on is the first thing he does when he comes home for a visit

After hugging me obvs

PrincessNutNutRoast · 14/12/2020 16:30

But this is a very artificial one

What makes a tradition natural, then? And why is the optional film night box that a jillion users claim never to have heard of more of a pressure than the tree, the decorations, the cards, the gifts, the meal and everything else?

BrumBoo · 14/12/2020 16:40

@Welcometonowhere

But this is a very artificial one and it does put pressure on people to spend yet more money and to chase the elusive perfect Christmas.

And what part of a 'tradition' Christmas is not artificial?

I do find greed a bit unappealing. I mean yes, I don’t rigidly stick to four presents or anything like that and I certainly am not above indulging children but for all that ... there is a middle ground somewhere between ‘something they want, etc’ and ‘mountains of crap.’

No one is saying they give 'mountains of crap' on Christmas Eve though. The way some have commented on here, it makes it sound like kids are getting another full Christmas on the 24th. What is excessive about new nightwear, hot chocolate and a book?

I'm spending more on a takeaway this evening than I have for my own children's Xmas Eve boxes (if they even come in a box, depends if I can find last year's). It's nothing I would have bought them anyway, and the suggestion that its either gratuitous or consumerism gone mad is quite beyond me. If people were saying 'oh little Jack can open his new iPad Christmas eve, he'll get his main present of a gold plated ps5 a 70 inch new TV and 500 other presents to entertain him properly tomorrow' I'd understand.... somewhat. Still not really anyone else's business how other 'do' Christmas or how much (or little) they spend.

JohnMiddleNameRedactedSwanson · 14/12/2020 16:48

Thank goodness for Mumsnet. Sneering at others seems to have been many people’s primary coping strategy this year and it’s a valid public service.

PrincessNutNutRoast · 14/12/2020 16:52

there is a middle ground somewhere between ‘something they want, etc’ and ‘mountains of crap.’

Sounds like a film night box to me.

BrumBoo · 14/12/2020 16:55

@JohnMiddleNameRedactedSwanson

Thank goodness for Mumsnet. Sneering at others seems to have been many people’s primary coping strategy this year and it’s a valid public service.
Proper laughed at this to be fair.
RaspberryCoulis · 14/12/2020 16:58

@myhobbyisouting

"Christmas eve BOXES weren’t a thing years ago"

They were absolutely a "thing" 40 years ago. I don't understand why pps think that just because they weren't aware of something that it didn't exist at all

I think there's a distinction though.

Lots of families had the tradition of new stuff on Christmas Eve apparently, pyjamas, whatever. Same box wheeled out every year, or whatever box Mum could lay her hands on, wrapped up.

What's NEW is the supermarkets, Home Bargains or wherever selling purpose-made "Christmas Eve Boxes" as a special box specifically for the purpose, or ready-filled boxes rather than something parents put together themselves. Or the personalised ones. That's all fairly new and you can't argue it's not commercialised when you walk into Asda and directly facing you is a pallet of Disney-themed or superhero "Christmas Eve boxes" which they're charging £7.50 for because it's a cardboard box with a character on.

hansgrueber · 14/12/2020 17:05

[quote BrumBoo]@hansgrueber (what an appropriate username!), as pp said, the entire concept of Christmas is a money-making event. You can pick and choose which parts you... well partake in. For example, I never bother with the elf (genuinely, the elf would have been sent back to the North Pole by day 3, I just CBA with that sort of thing), but most other families I know do it. On the flipside, I've not known anyone else to do Xmas Eve Boxes, but I quite like it as 'here's some presents, now chill your shit until tomorrow' thing. I did know one family who did the entire (or may it was everything but Santa) present opening on Xmas Eve, but they were of German decent. Different strokes and all that.[/quote]
German children get a double whammy, on December 5/6th they put out a red boot and if they've been good they get it filled with sweets by St Nicholas. Badly behaved children are visited by Schwarze Peter, a sweep like character who carried a bunch of stiff twigs for beating naughty children. Wonder what a German MN would make of that!

SchrodingersImmigrant · 14/12/2020 17:14

German children get a double whammy, on December 5/6th they put out a red boot and if they've been good they get it filled with sweets by St Nicholas. Badly behaved children are visited by Schwarze Peter, a sweep like character who carried a bunch of stiff twigs for beating naughty children. Wonder what a German MN would make of that!
I love that! 😂 Ours (non german) was more... Brutal. We get threaten by beating taken to hell if we were bad🙈 Parents love it. 2x they can remind kids to be good or they get nothing. Also presents are given on 24th in Germany and countries around, aren't they. Which is probably where the Christmas Eve traditions here came from imo

timeforanewstart · 14/12/2020 17:28

When my dc were little we never had xmas eve boxes but they always had new pjs so would of liked to do this
But can understand why some think its just an extra expense / hassle

Nonamesavail · 14/12/2020 17:35

@EurosprogBauble

But they did

Can you tell us where you would have bought said boxes then?

Do not know about shops but my parents made ours.
listsandbudgets · 14/12/2020 17:38

We give the DCs a new pair of pyjamas wrapped up on their pillow for when they go to bed (not matching ones) Its quite practical as they wear them all year - in fact I think dd has still got the ones from the year before as well as last years

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