What on earth is a Christmas Eve box??

[Xmasevewhat]

I've suddenly seen 'Christmas Eve boxes' popping up everywhere. In shops, on Etsy, social feeds. Never even heard of the concept and now all of a sudden it's everywhere.

Can someone explain the point? Seems like they are filled with same kind of things you'd put in a stocking. Be honest, is it just another Instagram fad/ excuse to spend money?

Why are you bothering reading the thread?

To reassure people that they aren't soulless, mindless, consumerist capitalists if they give their kids a film night box on Christmas Eve and nor are they odd or somehow lacking if they enjoy hot chocolate as a gift or with their families.

Why are you crafting paragraphs on paragraphs on the great mystery of hot chocolate? What exactly are you unsure about?

If your normal hot chocolate brand is Tesco Basics then something like this is a treat.
Except that Bounty one. That can go in the bin 😂

I don't know what they've done to Cadbury's hot chocolate but it tastes shit these days.

I'm sure others who do similar have already replied, but our box is a mixture of new and old things and very much was designed around getting dd with SNs through a wind down routine to get a good sleep.

We use a cardboard box that held a gift years ago and stores our seasonal storybook and DVD collection the rest of the year.

When dd was very small, I got a 2nd plastic plate, bowl, glass set for her which was Christmas themed. She used it lots along with her version covered in flowers until she graduated to china plates - the flowers one was more heavily used and ready for recycling but we kept the Christmas one for taking out for about 6 weeks annually (1st Dec to 6th Jan when tree came down). Her plate and glass went into the box on 24th, to put out a glass of milk and some cookies we baked in the afternoon for Santa's snack.

Her stocking - used from her very first Christmas - was also in the box to lay out.

Our family edition of "'Twas the night before Christmas" as her bedtime story. (It didn't come out with the rest of the books on 1st Dec, but was kept for 24th).

And dd's hot water bottle with a snowman cover, used all winter, also got placed inside.

And then the consumables.
2 posh hot chocolate stirrers on sticks (for dd and I) and a craft Christmas beer for DH. And maybe a strange snack the he and dd would like (they love things like wasabi peas!).
A lush bath bomb each for DD and I, and a seasonal or otherwise nice treat shower gel for DH.

A pair of winter PJs for everyone, sometimes a pair of fluffy sock or slippers for dd - some years, some or all were Christmassy, but more often than not, just ordinary new PJs. Even if festive, they were worn all winter and often year round.

It only came out after dinner and after we lit the Christmas candle.

Dd would lay out her stocking and Santa's snack, before going up for a relaxing bath and get into new PJs. Come back down for a mug of hot chocolate to drink and her bedtime meds (a nightly thing anyway but normally powdered hot chocolate), before bring a cosy HWB up to hear the story in bed and settle down for a good sleep.

For us, it was a combination of necessary and nice things, but all things we reused over and over or things we would have gotten anyway, just all made more special by being packaged together. Rather than being a lot of "needless expense".

Oh, and on them being a new phenomenon?

The first we did was when DD was almost 2, and every year until early teens. She is now in her final year at school.

And there were plenty around us who had done similar for their older DCs or were now adults whose parents had done it for them, so absolutely not a new thing.

(I talk about it on MN, usually in the Christmas board, but I've never taken a photo of it, in all the years we did it, let alone post it up on SM - it is just something we did as our family tradition behind closed doors).

I've contributed to many of these threads over the years but even I could not have anticipated hot chocolate causing so much angst.

Like really, it's not difficult. Some people consider it a treat. If you are not one of those people, chalk it up to 'people having different preferences to you' and move on with your life.

Your posts on this topic every year make my Christmas. I remember a woman saying she had "never understood the concept of Christmas pyjamas" and you replying, "What are you struggling with?"

Actually, on hot chocolate... there was one of these box threads once when someone started on about how she just couldn't abide the "sweet, milky filth" and someone else said she loved getting sweet milky filth from her husband on Christmas Eve and it was all downhill from there. Or uphill, depending on how you looked at it.

Ah, MN and the annual Christmas Eve box threads. Gotta love it.

Wow, i bet Christmas is a barrel of laughs in your house.

Stepping away from the hot chocolate debate, I personally like Secret Santa. I think it helps keep down the amount of tat bought in many circumstances whilst ensuring people aren't left out.

We do it between friends and it makes things much easier. Means we aren't spending as much money, means we aren't buying for the sake of buying, means no one is left out or forgotten about.

@Girlsjustwannahavefundamentalrights

"Wow, i bet Christmas is a barrel of laughs in your house."

Why? Because my family celebrate it without American manufactured "fun". We've always had stockings at the end of the bed and presents around the tree on Christmas morning. The house is decorated with holly, mistletoe, ivy and the other usual trimmings. I buy lashings of lovely food and booze. We start the day with Slade's Merry Christmas (I am a 70's girl!) and bucks fizz. We have a blast. I just don't buy into this American consumerism crap and all its added expense and pressure. It isn't necessary and it is not even remotely traditional.

I just don't buy into this American consumerism crap and all its added expense and pressure. It isn't necessary and it is not even remotely traditional.

Well first of all, Christmas Eve boxes aren't American. But why is anything American automatically bad? And why are your decorations, gifts, food, booze and whatnot all fine, but someone else's film night box isn't? None of your stuff is necessary; that's the point of a celebration.

"Sweet milky filth"...yum. (Where does a white hot chocolate sit on the filth scale, especially if prepared by DH before some midwinter "snuggles"?!🤣🤣🤣)

I'm the early 70s it was bath, wash hair and new all year round pjs on Xmas Eve.

I just don't buy into this American consumerism crap and all its added expense and pressure. It isn't necessary and it is not even remotely traditional.

You do realise that everything you do is also consumerist, yes?

Absolutely none of what you do is 'necessary'.

All traditions have to start somewhere. Who cares anyway? Can't people start their own traditions without getting the green light from you?

The superiority complexes are not a great look. Live and let live.

And Christmas is the epitome of "manufactured fun". It's a specific day with specific traditions, although you can of course pick and choose and create your own. It isn't exactly spontaneous and creeping up on you unawares.

@ginasevern you give your children presents in Christmas day? How very consumerist of you.. are they necessary? Could you not just give them a lump of coal?

How gauche.

I genuinely can't! Heating mulled wine ? Getting Lebkuchen out? What else is there to do?

@irritation2345678

The celebration of Santa dates back hundreds of years. It is a tradition steeped in history and mystery. It is magical. It has deep roots and is marked throughout Europe. Elf on the Shelf not so much. As for secret santa (I'm talking specifically at work), I really do feel this is wrong on so many levels and I doubt that I'm the only one. I remember my poor single parent colleague having to buy some ridiculous tat for someone she barely knew that cost £10. She was in tears because she desperately needed that £10 to put towards her kids' presents. It's all very well saying don't do it but that's just not the reality of the situation. It is stupid, imported forced fun that has the potential to really embarrass people and it does add a hell of a lot of tat to landfill.

It is magical. It has deep roots and is marked throughout Europe. Elf on the Shelf not so much.

How do you think traditions begin? The whole point is that they start somewhere and build over time. They don't suddenly emerge in everyone's lives fully fledged.

As it happens, I think the elf owes a great deal to some very old Christmas traditions - it's tapping into some similar themes as the Lord of Misrule, which was celebrated in Tudor times.

Do you have German manufactured fun in the shape of a tree?

And even a half arsed read of this thread would show you Christmas eve gifting is very much a European thing, not American.

@ginasevern your colleague didn't have to spend that £10. It wouldn't have been compulsory. She could have said no.
This is my concept of Christmas - if there is a part of it you don't enjoy/can't do -then just don't do it.
None of it is compulsory.

@TheKeatingFive

I would far rather that the Lord of Misrule was resurrected from it's ancient pagan origins than something invented in the States in 2005.

He was - that's the point!

What's it to you how other people bring the old tradition into the modern day? The Lord of Misrule was once only 18 himself. How old does it need to be before it becomes acceptable? They're both from the same ultimate source.

The character Elf on the Shelf comes from a children's book that a lot of kids love. It doesn't mean much to people who are too old to have had it but there's a new generation coming that was raised on it. And it is indeed a resurrection and new interpretation of the ancient character.

Elf on the Shelf is something we don’t buy into. It’s not something I have the inclination or energy to do. If others are wanting to do it, makes no difference to me. I don’t judge or mock them because it’s none of my business.