To think four present rule seems a bit mean?

[antelopevalley]

I mean you do you.
But secretly I do think it is a bit mean. Although you probably would think we are tacky as our children have a big wrapped pile of presents at Christmas.

Four, not for

Mine will have piles of presents… but half of it is new clothes which they needed so not really.

I was always brought up with 1 gift from parents and a stocking.

Ds will get the same. 1 main gift, plus stocking.

He also has about 8 other gifts from family, friends. So he isn’t hard done by.

He doesn’t need anything else. He’s 2. If he needs a coat or books to read I would just buy them as needed, not as a gift. I have never wrapped up essential things like toothbrushes and socks in stocking either, they get bought year around.

Stocking is full of fun things, toys, chocolate.

A big pile of presents isn't better than four. Buying stuff just so kids have a lot of stuff to open is...odd.

I'm not sticking to it this year but for my kids each of the things are pretty expensive.

So dd
Want - DM's at £180
Need - blender - £40
Wear - Oodie £18
Read - comic subscription - £80

Ds
Want - Cash as he is saving for something
Need - Gig Bag £40
Wear - Oodie £18
Read - This is where I fall down so I count reading music as reading and he is getting a £90 piece of music tech

They will also get a stocking with smellies, chocolate, sweets, fluffy socks etc

@Caspianberg At 2 he does not really understand Christmas. At 2 my DS got a car and a selection box.

I agree with you. I think there's something magical about coming downstairs and seeing a pile of presents under the tree as a child.

For families who want to give their kids more than 4 presents, that’s totally fine. I hope their kids enjoy their presents and enjoy their day.

But it is categorically not mean to stick to 4. That’s plenty, particularly when presents from others and a stocking is involved, which is usually the case.

@antelopevalley - he fully understands. He’s 2 and 7 months, and it’s been drilled into him daily at nursery recently.

Either way, the amount of gifts won’t change as he gets older. At 2 he’s getting a £50 ish main gift, then stocking (about £100 worth). No doubt as a teenager he will want the latest iPhone as 1 main and pricey items in stocking.

I am on the fence about it. I don't follow it personally and tend to spoil my kids on Christmas and birthdays a bit but we don't buy stuff toys etc much the rest of the year. They get clothes when they need them and I often buy second hand books as we are big on reading. If a family is struggling it's quite sensible but some people I know have used it say they can't afford Christmas gifts for there kids but can afford to go out most weekends. It's priority and personal choice. Some kids get loads from extended family too.

Same here.

@Caspianberg If he is getting 1 main present at £50 and a stocking at £200, he is getting loads at two years old.

I do four. Try to stick to the want/need/wear/read but have had to use imagination to fit some categories. They also get a stocking and one gift from Santa. Gifts range this year between a bike, football tickets, scrapbooking “stuff”. But they also have 3 x grandparents aunts, cousins. The list is endless. So yes, we limit to four so as not to completely spoil them. But I don’t think I’m better than anyone else 🤷🏽‍♀️

And I don’t mean a bike/football tickets/scrapbooking for one child. Ones main is a bike, one is football tickets, one is scrapbook - because that’s all she’s asked for, one is a styling head

@antelopevalley - well that’s the point of the thread is it? Whether just 4 gifts and stocking is ‘mean’?
A stocking could be full of anything.
£100 doesn’t get loads tbh. It’s about 10 items at £10 each. Ie schleich animal, bath toy, duplo accessory, little wooden puzzle

Dh only gets 1 gift and stocking too. But as his stocking has things like go pro accessories, fancy chocolate, expensive gloves he wants, I doubt he will feel it’s ‘not much’.

My friendship circle is high income. I find the excess in some of the households over the christmas period obscene.

Kids getting so many toys they don't even know what they have been given resulting in stuff being passed on virtually unlooked at months down the line.

When there are families struggling so much I really wish my friends would reign it in and donate to one of the local food/ toy banks.

If you have a large extended family then the four present rule is pretty sensible to my mind but I was brought up in a family where Christmas gifts were restrained - one big present from my parents and then some smaller type gifts - craft set, pants, book etc.

We do it (plus a stocking from Father Christmas). It's not mean at all.

For instance Teen DSD had a couple of years ago:

Want: Games console
Need: new ski sunglasses for holiday
Wear: designer trainers (wouldn't buy that brand normally).
Read: Series of 8 books from fave author

Our baby is having this year:
Want: zoo membership
Need: bouncing chair baby Einstein
Wear: Christmas outfit and pyjamas
Read: Baby's first library (many books)

Father Christmas stockings for the teens have chocolate, cinema gift cards, mini travel speakers etc on top.

The older girls often want high value items (gig tickets, tech, designer clothes, expensive makeup, straighteners etc), so they aren't exactly hard done by. But we are limited on space.

All in all they get carefully selected gifts that they want and need rather than masses of crap. They also get presents from wider family, (and from their mum and her family in DSDs case) etc.

I think it's time we moved away from the idea that kids have to get a roomful of presents or somehow you've failed at Christmas!

Id much rather my kids had 4 nice presents than a roomful of tat.
Also it's easy to do the big impressive pile of toys when kids are tiny - children's toys tend to be big, on 3 for 2 at Argos etc. But for older kids a PlayStation game (back when you bought discs and didn't download them) could be £60 and was the size of a CD!

But I agree it's mean if you aren't getting nice presents and have included something shit, like a toothbrush or necessary clothes in the 4.

I think that stretches what I certainly would think of a stocking. Stockings are supposed to be small things to keep kids happy until they open their main presents in front of their parents. Chocolate, small toy like a yoyo, colouring book.
It is fine to put expensive things in stockings, but it means you are not only giving one gift.

I don’t get 4 presents plus a stocking! What’s int he stocking? aren’t they presents too?!

As a child my favourite present was always the stocking!♥

We always did stockings full of sweets - not everyday ones but unusual things they would get all the time. Then presents were separate.

The stocking was what they opened sitting on the end of our bed. It gave us an extra half hour to wake up properly/have a cup of tea/coffee!

OMG I forgot about the half onion as a secret Santa present 🤣🤣🤣

I don’t know about 4 as an exact number, but thoughtful and conservative gift buying is morally right. Mountains of crap are not victim free, we all suffer as a result of rampant consumerism:

“People in eastern Congo are massacred to facilitate smart phone upgrades of ever diminishing marginal utility(3). Forests are felled to make “personalised heart-shaped wooden cheese board sets”. Rivers are poisoned to manufacture talking fish. This is pathological consumption: a world-consuming epidemic of collective madness, rendered so normal by advertising and the media that we scarcely notice what has happened to us…

Bake them a cake, write them a poem, give them a kiss, tell them a joke, but for god’s sake stop trashing the planet to tell someone you care. All it shows is that you don’t.“

source: www.monbiot.com/2012/12/10/the-gift-of-death/