What are you stripping back this Christmas?

[Carfeulyay]

As my thoughts turn to Christmas - I’m conscious this year with rising prices and uncertainties that I would like to limit spending this year.

I put money aside each month for Christmas, so I have a nice little aim set aside but I would like to draw some of that back into my emergency fund or cover cost of rising heating bills.

What will you be cutting back this year? I’m thinking visit to Santa, Xmas panto & reducing present budget per child

We have stripped it right back. DD5 is getting tickets for a ballet performance, a book related to that performance and a chess game. The ballet tickets we managed to get for free. Maybe I will buy her some extra little things, crafty bits and the like.

DH and I usually treat ourselves to a household item we want, last year it was an air fryer and a muffin tin.

My family do Secret Santa. DH's family exchange money (presents are hard due to most of them living abroad. DH already bought a coat with his money and I will buy some exercise clothes.

We are not going to do activities out of the house like panto's or grotto. Instead we will do crafty sessions at home and lots of baking.

Christmas dinner will be a soup for starters, roast chicken with fancy sides like dauphinoise and maybe some ice cream for afters. With a bottle of wine. No super expensive food but a bit more intricate than normal. I mean dauphinoise is just potatoes and cream really but feels really decadent.

Boxing day will be leftover Christmas dinner for lunch and cheese fondue in the evening.

The only luxury is a real Christmas tree, which will be delivered to our home on the 10th of December. Maybe we will go to the garden centre and buy a new decoration each.

Secret Santa for the adults on Xmas day so everyone only has to buy 1 gift for a set budget, instead of multiple adult gifts. Only kids getting usual amount of presents.

Cooking Xmas dinner at ours and family members bringing extra booze, cheese and puddings. Generous grandparents offered to pay for the turkey and the ham. Veggie always brings her own nut roast.

Just an Xmas tree for decoration with old family heirloom & kids homemade baubles etc so no buying decorations other than the actual tree. Might bring in some holly from the woods if we see any.

Kindling for the fire foraged from woods. Heated throw on our knees while watching tv in evenings instead of heating on.

This is pretty much our usual Xmas just a few frugal extras like the secret Santa and the new heated throw (supposed to cost 3p an hour).

Hopefully nothing, I love Christmas. We don't tend to waste much though.

This year I aim to mainly ignore it, will send cards and presents/cash to those I normally do but as I have high cholesterol will not be indulging in the usual extras. Roll on the sales where I might treat myself!

We are doing a secret santa for adults in the family with a set budget.
We arent buying any new decorations or outdoor decorations.
DH and I will do a small present for each other.
Our child is very young so we will do only a handful of toys as he doesn't understand yet.
We probably won't go out to eat and we are only doing one family Christmas event which is the Watercress trainline.

We will have a newborn so that helps give an excuse for a more streamlined Christmas. I'll do a reduced list of people to buy for, and reduce what we actually buy them, as we will naturally be seeing less people. I usually go quite overboard with home made stuff for people and this is a good opportunity to stop doing it. I'm also not "stocking up" on stuff like Christmas chocolate and crisps - I never have enough space to store them and it adds to a cluttered feel over Christmas. We are often gifted stuff like chocolate anyway so end up with so much. As others have said, I'm going to concentrate on the main days of the holiday and buy nice food for that and not go overboard on the other days. When you're spending time at home it's actually still lovely to have normally food like a beef stew, a lasagne, a veggie curry, soups etc to eat if you're all eating together at the table when you're normally at school/work etc. Doesn't have to be full festive meals each night! I've also found my family are simple creatures and one of their favourite things over Christmas is having a hot pudding each night! So stuff like baked apples, syrup sponge, crumbles, a warm mince pie etc with cheap vanilla ice cream pleases them greatly and feels festive to us!

I'm not buying any presents for my teenagers only my dogs

We try to avoid the really pricey stuff anyway. We have NT membership so walks, NT Xmas events, baking, enjoying the Xmas lights. We do the panto but at a small local theatre.

No advent calendars, no themed novelty tat, no Christmas pyjamas or jumpers, no panto, no expensive day out, no new decorations, no elf, no Christmas eve boxes. No Christmas cards or token gifts for people we don't see from one end of the year to the next. No gifts for friends children (we have all collectively agreed to stop this and instead get the children together to play for an afternoon during the holidays)

We will see a local Santa, go to the Christmas markets, I have bought everything for the children throughout the year in sales. Hampers for adults made of nice non perishable food bits in the shops added to the weekly shop over the past month or so. Christmas films on telly, making paper chains or snowflakes if more decorations are needed. DH & I are not buying each other any presents but we have booked a Groupon deal for a hotel for a night at the end of January.

Get them to buy branded clothes themselves.

Its selfish to demand branded expensive clothes out the family budget.

Have them when you can afford to buy them yourself instead of pitting the pressure on.

Not really cutting back anything as we have a sinking fund for it.

We go to Panto every New Years Eve and these are £59 a ticket and there are three of us, but we book every new years eve for the next year and have saved the ticket money through the year.

Presents, we have a limit for each other and child and this is saved through the year too. Family we only buy presents for children and parents and again, this is saved.

We start buying extra food treats around now, turkey is ordered and weve bolled our Christmas eve food delivery slot already.

We don't see Father Christmas any more but have a family outing and this has been booked today.

Christmas cards are wrote and ready to be sent, I spent about £60 8 years ago in a Clinton's sale and still have tons of cards left from there. Everything was reduced to half price, a further 50% off and buy 2 get 1 free on all cards and paper so stocked up and I'm now on the 9th year of not having to buy any cards etc.

Can I just ask how the Christmas day traditions work in a hotel - where do you do your present opening, and where do you watch the Christmas TV, do your jigsaws? I love the sound of it, but just can't quite picture how it works?
Thanks :)

Eh?

I don't watch TV or do puzzles on Christmas day, so I don't think these are universal traditions.

Surely if you want to do gifts you just do them in your room.

It was an innocent question - I just wondered that's all.

I’m also curious about those that stay in hotels, especially with children

I doubt it's that much different to home, except there are other people there, and staff.

Go for a walk, watch TV in your room, you can probably do your jigsaw in the lounge depending on the hotel layout.

I've never done it but it doesn't feel like that much of a mystery. I have stayed in hotels before though.

Don’t know about you… but when I stay in a hotel on very much feels different to being at home! And that’s generally with not actually being in the hotel much, as we generally use as a base.

so myself and others curious about family routine with children when staying in a hotel and presumably in the hotel for more than normal when staying in a hotel on holiday!

I don't think you are compelled to stay in the hotel.

This is difficult!

Just curious about routine and logistics with children in a hotel.

Youd think I was saying something racist!

Nothing this year as I'd been budgeting since January as usual, but next year we've already decided to cut down our gift list but almost half.

I'll be cutting everything down. It's likely It'll just be me and my 2 kids on Christmas. Having a calm Christmas.

We are cutting back on tubs of chocolate as no one eats them, but that's it. I worked to earn money earlier in the year to save for Xmas this year, and purchased at lot of wrapping paper, cards, new decorations etc in the Jan sales; panto tickets purchased when they went on sale in the summer.

I do think I end up spending more that I expect to when I buy throughout the year, but we all really love Christmas so it's worth it.

My budget for presents and what not was just over a thousand for every body.
It's gone up to 2k already and I've got my youngest twos birthday this month and next!
I've started buying all my biscuits and Christmas stuff when I've seen it marked down or on offer.

Got a lovely leg of lamb and big salmon reduced to I think £3 each the other day in Sainsburys so that's away in the freezer for Christmas Day. Not really doing Christmas presents for adults this year. My parents never appreciate it and act like they are hard done by so sod it.
I'm also due a baby Christmas week so been trying to sort out her bits and bobs and will use Black Friday to get her cot and whatever else.
Defo not doing as much days out. Too cold, too much hassle and kids are usually bored in theatres. Will probably miss Winter wonderland this year.

@Carfeulyay

As regards Panto I would hate you to miss out! Can you look online and see if your local theatre does cheap or free tickets if you apply early enough?

Our local one does. In the past, we had to queue on the Saturday before (rather windswept area) it is all online.

I find this so sad, feel like we're working hard to not have as much fun. Why bother with the stress of the jobs me & hubby do to see no real benefit 🤷‍♀️

But to answer question :

• no panto (we've gone for 10 + years!)
• no 'nice' food shop (we usually go to the local emporium & get cheeses, meats, chocolates, alcohol and decorations)
• no real tree 😭
• no presents for me & hubby
• cold house
• no Xmas day outfits (usually get something dressy & nice)
• no donation to local charities