to think there is an inverse relationship between how little money people have and how much they are willing to spend on presents for their children

[Twiglett]

am truly gobsmacked at some of the things that people I know are buying for their children

truly and utterly, spoilt bastard, gobsmacked

why spend that much money? why?

I'm certain it's been said because this is an incredibly long thread, but I think adding everything up spent on children over the year (including holidays, extracurricular activities etc) would be a more revealing exercise than peering nto Christmas stockings and making judgements based on that.

Ah yes. LittleBella did.

In that case

I agree with LittleBella.

LOL yes this thread has inspired me to bite the bullet and scour the Argos site for anything Bratz-related.

Do you think my cat would like an Island Pricess Head?

He's a boy

Actually, peering into stockings can be quite revealing. Because people who pride themselves on not spending much on the 'big' present often have rather different ideas of what constitutes a well-filled stocking IME.

too chucky like for me, what if it spoke when there were no batteries in it???

aha - my cat would probably like to maul those cute little forest creatures

Oh God I've just come over all faint

Am thinking of putting only turnips in the stockings after that

It's such a wierd concept

an island with a princess head on it...

I think you should buy your cat a Wii Iota, it's the least you can do.

I agree tellusmater. In my opinion a DVD or CD for example is not a stocking filler.

I think it should be called Island Princess Drag Queen Head.

Satsumas and diaries with scratchy pens, thats good ole stocking fillers VictorianSqualorStyle.

oooh Tamum - we bought a Wii last year - they are soooooooo last year

We have a big f*ck-off plasma TV to use it with as well.

ahhh the thrill of the debate

judgements flying on all sides

It's so good to get the blood pumping isn't it?

Twiglett knows we love her, though!

so, has the interest rate cut encouraged you to splurge on your kids?

was thinkiing about this thread over night.

I know a very (very) wealthy woman who always boasts about the factt hat she doesnt spoil her kids at xmas etc.

She does however spend huge obscene amounts of money on shoes/ beauty treatments/ jewellery/ clothes for herself.

Meanwhile one of her little boys is going to school at the moment is a thin fleece thing instead of a proper winter coat.

I started off reading this thread thinking that we shouldnt judge oethers. But i just want to shout at her 'stop buying yourself bloody shoes and buy your kid a decent coat'.

So i am being judgemental - just the other way.

No expat because my mortgage payment for December has already winged its way off to Nationwide.

When we got our Wii, i got the last one in the shop which was lucky, thier was a string of people queing for them o the door.

The lady behind me was with her son who couldn't af been more that about 7, she was ranting as i was on my own she assumed i had brought it for myself and told me i was disgusting becuase i would be depriving a child of a Wii, and mostly her son wanted one.

Anyway as i was waiting for the shop blokey to bag it up she turns to her son and says 'oh never mind dear you can have the xbox 360 AND the playstation 3 instead!'

I was