Suddenly feel like a crap parent.

[Ceecee30]

I did not get them a toy advent calendar like many people have posted on Facebook. They have chocolate ones. They seem happy with that but what if their friends have the toy ones and they realise they don't?

We have an elf on the shelf but he isn't half as adventurous as some. He often just sits on the shelf so climbs on the lampshade. we didn't buy one of the fancy balloons people bought to welcome him back.

We don't have matching Christmas pjs.

I don't plan to do Christmas Eve boxes.

I haven't booked a Santa experience, a winter wonderland or any other things.

We do have our decs up. We have been out looking at neighbours lights the last few nights. Dd did see Santa at a winter fayre but it was a quick whip in and out grotto. We've been to look in the local garden centre which is amazing at Christmas.

They've got a fair amount of presents each on Christmas Day itself but is all the extra leading up to it essential?

Please tell I'm not the only one who doesn't do everything everyone else is doing?!

Social media is the devil. Making me feel like we don't do much in comparison.

Meh it's up to you if you want to participate in those things, but they aren't all ££ things it's more if you can be bothered. I try really hard and do everything you have listed, although they only have chocolate advent calendars (they've not realised toy ones are a thing!). Don't feel bad if you don't want to join in, just stop looking at what everyone else is doing!

@TarasCrazyTiara ever heard of the phrase ‘thou dost protest too much’

Has the Christmas nerve been hit?

This is a spoof post, right? Right?

You are not a bad parent. You are an ordinary parent who refused to get sucked into the Christmas consumerist bollocks. My eyes rolled out of my head this morning looking at a friend's facebook posts of balloons, chocolate bouquets and assorted plastic tat, accompanied by an elf and the caption "look who's back!"

Also, are also some really valuable lessons you can teach your kids around Christmas which are far, far more important than any advent calendar. A few years ago, we started doing the Met Police present thing whereby you get given a child’s age and gender and buy a present for them. It’s likely to be the only gift they get. Pre covid we did it every year and my kids came to choose the toy with me. They were really sad that this would maybe be all the child would get, and my older one actually gave me her saved pocket money to buy another gift for another child.

We also do reverse food advent calendars every year for a local charity and donate to food banks more often around now.

My kids are NOT perfect. They can be spoilt and whingy, but they understand that they are lucky. They understand that some kids will wake up with no presents and no nice food on Christmas Day and they also understand that by not doing an extra activity ourselves (which they don’t need- they do plenty) we can help in a small way.

OP I've been feeling the same today. I generally feel like xmas eve boxes, advent boxes, matching pjs etc are too much and I dislike all the consumerism but then I think am I just being a grinch and will DDs feel they missed out?!

It's not even Facebook where I see this stuff, it's mainly mumsnet where I hear about things like hot chocolate stations and wonder if this is something I should be doing 😂

I have to say I find the elf in pretty bad taste (sorry) it is so ugly/cheap looking and also don't do the Santa watching thing. Generally it's a bit sinister all round.

There are lots of different elves out there including vair nice ones from fancy brands like jellycat. Are they also in bad taste (just wondering)?

I keep saying this but I don't know anyone who does surveillance with their elf. It's just a bit of fun. Nothing sinister about it.

Isn’t there enough plastic shit around without 24 extra pieces? Stick with the chocolate one. Speaking of which, dh promised me a cheese advent calendar
I’ve just had a memory flashback. I remember a work colleague making her own advent calendar up with 24 boxes of bits a pieces —useless tat— and her son was just so ungrateful, he just wanted chocolate.

I wonder how many elves with professional balloons to announce their arrival would exist without social media? I get the impression a lot of things are less for the children and more for Instagram.

You're absolutely fine. Christmas is not about the amount of money you can spend. It's about spending time with loved ones.

I can't believe so many people have gone so OTT this year, especially after the 'humanity code red' warning. No fuckers are listening. They think it's more important too buy as much tat as they can and have it all shipped from China. Ffs.

I think pick and choose, if you did it all you would go mad. We do 1st December box and Lego advent calendar but don’t do Elf on the shelf, it looks like so much hard work!
We don’t do Christmas Eve box because we do PJs etc on 1st December. We like to do one Santa thing- we did a Magical experience in York this year. We tend to go to the garden centre to look at all the decorations as well but don’t buy much, maybe one new wesleybob. We love Christmas but lots of the things that make it special are at home like decorating the tree, making mince pies etc.

It sounds exhausting for adults and children!

I’m here to remind you that your well-being matters over this period. Stressing yourself with all the unnecessary stuff, spending money you can ill afford on plastic tat or bedding to use just once a year is a waste of your physical/emotional/financial resources.

How about a Christmas gratitude tradition? How about a food bank collection? What about an advent calendar where everyone in the family gets to do things for others?

Social media is bad for your well-being and encourages mindless consumerism.

This festive season, give yourself the gift of your own time and attention. Ask yourself - who is meeting my needs? Am I well? Have I taken on too much?

Wishing everyone a lot of self compassion.

My kids will get a lump of coal from the chimney each and a cuff round the lughole...and be bloody grateful for it.

@whitehorsesdonotlie

You're absolutely fine. Christmas is not about the amount of money you can spend. It's about spending time with loved ones.

I can't believe so many people have gone so OTT this year, especially after the 'humanity code red' warning. No fuckers are listening. They think it's more important too buy as much tat as they can and have it all shipped from China. Ffs.

Thank you @whitehorsesdonotlie

Social media is the devil

You said it, OP.

I did none of the things you mention when my DC were young enough to be excited. They did have chocolate Advent calendars, but that was it until Christmas Day. We also had (have) a CD of Christmas carols which gets its annual outing at some point in December. We didn't put the tree up until they broke up from school. But we had nothing to compare it to, as it was all pre-social media, thank God.

That said: social media aren't compulsory even now. I still don't use them. I suggest you switch them off and concentrate on doing what you enjoy doing with your DC.

😂 I wasn't going to do Advent calendars at all only DD asked today for one. So I let her and her brother pick one out (fortunately Lidl had some left). I let the two of them open the whole thing tonight! #badmum

Dd has a dairy milk advent calendar. Not partaking in any of the other new traditions in this house.

@TarasCrazyTiara - not liking or wanting to do Elf on The Shelf doesn't make someone a Grinch!

I don't do Elf on the Shelf because I couldn't be bothered finding different things for it to do every day. That started because I also had a mum with Alzheimer's to look after when DS was little and finding poses for a toy every day or putting it in different places was one thing too much to think about at Christmas. I didn't want to disappoint DS by the toy still being in the same place as yesterday because I'd been called out to mum's for a fall or off to an appointment with her so I didn't start something I couldn't keep up. Doesn't make me a Grinch - it makes me aware of my limitations!

So, as I said, our Elf slept with DS for the whole year, he was a toy, didn't move. Then on 24th December he went off with a cuddle from DS to help Santa get everything out for Christmas. The magic of Christmas!

On Christmas day, the first year, he came back with a gift that Santa had left on his sleigh 'by accident' but DS had to find Elf (which has a name as he's a well loved toy) and gift first with a clue from Santa...and that tradition was born. I had time to make a small treasure hunt (and I mean small, like 'you'll find him where you go to sleep'). But doing a pose or hiding the Elf every day just wasn't going to happen in my life at that time. I adapted a craze to suit my life and DS thought it was great that his Elf came back with a gift - none of his friends Elves did that but they got over it like he got over not having a moving Elf.

My mum had a Christmas stocking every year since she was a child. Her parents did it for her, when she left home Dad did it for her (and her for him) and when he died we took over. When she was in care the first thing she looked for was the Christmas stocking. It was her constant, the thing she remembered most about Christmas. That's the important thing. Finding the thing you and the kids remember about Christmas. Elf, stockings, Santa visits or snuggling up watching a film. It's the 'constant' in Christmas that my poor old, dementia ridden mum found in her Christmas stocking that's important. Not every craze. Just the crazes that suit your life.

It doesn't matter if you like doing the Elf, if you adapt it to suit you, if you have a Christmas teddy doing the same thing because an Elf is not your cup of tea or if you don't bother. As long as you and the kids have a good time that's all that matters. And we do with our Elf that comes to life on Christmas Eve.

@LadyMonicaBaddingham

People are not really doing these things for their children; they are doing them for themselves and their own self-image. It's a sad truth that pictures for social media is the prime reason for things like matching family pyjamas 🤮 and stacks of gifts that almost eclipse the Christmas tree (which has, of course, been up since mid-November).

Don't get me started on that bloody elf... a Christmas tradition, my fat white arse

This

Go and give them hugs for no other reason than you love them because they're the best thing that ever happened to you.
And then don't give these other titbits a second's thought. They don't matter one jot.

You don’t need to do everything!

We don’t have an elf at all because I don’t let snitches in my house. We have a reusable advent calendar that I fill with all different things. I do a Christmas Eve box that contains pyjamas but they aren’t Christmas themed, just ordinary warm pyjamas they can wear any time. I’m not doing grotto visits or expensive light walk throughs, though we will visit a Christmas market and go to a pantomime (courtesy of DM who has bought the kids tickets).

You don’t have to do any of these things! Just enjoy the time together with your kids in any way you want and they will love it.

Your own Christmas traditions are what they will get excited about. As a child I never wanted a chocolate Advent calendar because we never had one, so to me they just weren't Christmassy at all. We got beautiful picture ones instead which I always thought were more magical. I get the same for mine and they love them.

We've never done Christmas Eve boxes, elf on the shelf, matching pj's, meeting Father C etc - none of it. We do try to go to our local Christmas lights switch on, make mince pies together (which we leave out on Christmas Eve, along with a carrot), and we always put up our (real, beautiful smelling) tree on the same date every year - exactly one week before Christmas - while listening to the same ancient Christmas CD.

On Christmas morning, it goes: open stockings, go to church, have lovely breakfast, THEN open presents. Kids play with toys while I make a start on lunch. I think most kids would feel hard done by if they weren't allowed to open their presents as soon as they wake up, but for us it would be weird and just wouldn't feel like Christmas. Your own traditions are what make it special, and make it yours.

Please don't judge your family traditions by measuring them against other people's. Many of them are recent American imports anyway. Children won't remember the things that you're stressing over; they'll remember how they feel.

@TarasCrazyTiara

Wow whole lot of grinches up in here. Just because you “never had it when you were a kid and you loved Christmas” doesn’t mean it’s bad - I’m sure a lot of people in generations before you didn’t have the presents you got, or the fancy decorations or loads of things you got yet for some reason if it happened when you were a kid it was perfect and everything added after is “too much”.

People calm down - Elf on the Shelf is a fucking toy you buy once and hide for fun, it takes literally like a minute of your day and it doesn’t blow up if you don’t post in on Facebook! Ever go to see Christmas lights? That right there is more time consuming than elf on the shelf and the lights cost more too.

I think grumpy people just complain at whatever all year round.

“Facebook pictures of Christmas are all about competition” (no and the people who post them would probably rather people like those who think that didn’t snoop on them and judge)

“Elf on the Shelf is consumerism gone mad!”

Give me an Elf lovin break.

If you're posting your life on social media then other people seeing your photos aren't 'snooping'. You're literally waving it right in our faces.

Is it just me or does anyone else think grown adults look ridiculous in cartoon pyjamas ?