To think there are too many treats now

[Naptrappedmummy]

and that not only is it stressful/expensive for parents, it’s also spoiling the magic for the kids? Because every week seems to bring a present/treat/experience now, it’s routine and not as exciting as it used to be?

Take Christmas, when I was a kid not much happened until Christmas Eve bar opening the advent calendar and going on walks to see houses that had inflatable reindeer on the front lawn. Now it’s a month long affair, elf on the shelf, new pyjamas, a different outing every weekend, Christmas Eve boxes etc.

I’m not saying I’m any better than anyone else. I too have slipped into the habit of trying to make everything special and keeping up with the Joneses, but lately I’ve noticed DD is a bit ‘meh’ about everything I put on and doesn’t seem as excited as I remember being at that age.

Maybe I’m just getting old!

I agree OP. It is utterly exhausting. But then I get FOMO for my children as everyone else is doing the whole lot in December.

Pantomime traditions, Santa’s meet and greets, go to whichever forest to spend the weekend on a cabin, writing cards, sending gifts, meal planning and prepping, gift buying and wrapping, work Xmas meals, and the list is never ending.

I wish I could stay in my pyjamas all day in all honesty…

Surely like any celebration or festival Cristmas is as complicated as you want to make it? So whilst we've had a 1000 threads on Christmas eve boxes you don't have to do one if you already do a stocking and there would be an overlap of things you'd put in both? Surely you can choose not to bother if you consider it more work, more expense? I disagree that there us a pressure for people to do so, it's only if ypu put in on yourself.

As for the events, if you can afford them fair enough. Many events for Christmas you have to book much earlier in the year which helps spread out the cost. With it being winter and a bit miserable weather wise it's nice to have something to look forward to. Often on mumsnet you'll get parents saying they need to be out every day, their kids need to run off steam, they need to be kept occupied or get bored. Often they'll be the parents booking shed loads of activities but they would be looking to occupy their kids time with either clubs or something else anyway. Not every minute of a child's day needs to be mictomsnaged and god forbid they be bored indoors and cone up with ways to entertain themselves.

*micromanaged even!
Appreciate there is a whole host of typos but you get the gist.

Even the Christmas viewing is different. We’d circle the big films in the Radio & TV times that we wanted to watch, but now everyone has already seen everything on Netflix, Prime or whatever.

Christmas stockings used be smaller things too. Avon Pretty Peach soap on a roap, satsumas, a roll of shiny new pennies. This sounds like something Victorian, but it was in the mid-sixties to early eighties.

My friends are all about the personalised bits and bobs. December 1st boxes, pjs with surname on them, Christmas Eve boxes, plates for Santa (1 for each child with names on them), special present sacks and stockings. Must cost a fortune to have it all made.
Theres also the Christmas mini photo shoot, 3 or 4 different Santa experiences and the light trails.

I see this all on social media but these are my actual friends, not influencers.

I don’t understand seeing Santa more than once, but between school and sports clubs mine have ended up seeing him a few times.
I try to keep things a bit reasonable, this year I haven’t made many plans at all, but my son is in year 1 and it’s been one thing after another with school in the last month.

As a teacher, I've had kids get into school and find that the elf has got into their school bag. Also, on a few occasions 'elves' have been known to wrap each individual item in a child's packed lunch in Christmas wrapping paper. Busy lunchtime staff are never haply when they have to assist with the unwrapping!!

Xmas eve boxes are the worse thing ever

I think a lot of stuff is done for the parents benefit and the parents then get annoyed when the children do not get excited about the experiences.

There is a reason, now forgotten, why Advent used to be similar to Lent.

Advent by Patrick Kavanagh

We have tested and tasted too much, lover –
Through a chink too wide there comes in no wonder.
But here in the Advent-darkened room
Where the dry black bread and the sugarless tea
Of penance will charm back the luxury
Of a child’s soul, we’ll return to Doom
The knowledge we stole but could not use.

And the newness that was in every stale thing
When we looked at it as children: the spirit-shocking
Wonder in a black slanting Ulster hill
Or the prophetic astonishment in the tedious talking
Of an old fool will awake for us and bring
You and me to the yard gate to watch the whins
And the bog-holes, cart-tracks, old stables where Time begins.
O after Christmas we’ll have no need to go searching
For the difference that sets an old phrase burning –
We’ll hear it in the whispered argument of a churning

Or in the streets where the village boys are lurching.
And we’ll hear it among decent men too
Who barrow dung in gardens under trees,
Wherever life pours ordinary plenty.
Won’t we be rich, my love and I, and please
God we shall not ask for reason’s payment,
The why of heart-breaking strangeness in dreeping hedges
Nor analyse God’s breath in common statement.
We have thrown into the dust-bin the clay-minted wages
Of pleasure, knowledge and the conscious hour –
And Christ comes with a January flower.

I remember Christmas fayres, parties at school and brownies, concerts etc 30 years ago.

We took DDs to the same Christmas experience (a Santa train) that DH went to as a child... and the railway have photographs of it going back decades, since the heritage railway began.

The difference is that we know what everyone else does now.

Why do people put so much pressure on themselves though? I don’t bother with dec 1st boxes or xmas eve boxes, photoshoots, multiple trips to Santa etc. I don’t have the time, money or inclination. I don’t feel bad about it or feel my dc miss out in anyway.

I don’t know what era you’re referring to but I grew up in the 50’s and 60’s and nothing like that was the case for me or those I knew.

Boozy meals weren’t a thing and mothers weren’t slaving alone in the kitchen. The whole thing was more of a family centric occasion with everyone pitching in to help. It was fun.

Best thing you can do for kids imv is give them your time and attention - presuming you are working that will be limited but I think that is the main thing.
I didn't particularly with my DCs but I am old and there was still the mantra that you mustn't spoil your children (by too much attention etc) - but now I think its so important. It must help the DCs find their future interests and careers if you encourage and help them when they are little, and to enjoy things they otherwise wouldn't do.

I broadly agree with weekend outings to museums, galleries, theme parks etc and giving children a fun and happy childhood. Not every weekend but a balance of fun with other commitments.

However, it does rather up the stakes at Christmas and continues to do so putting enormous pressure on parents to produce curated ‘fun’ and ‘magic’

Magic can be found looking at the night sky, in forests, in night time gardens and changjng weather and seasons. By always following a commercial diet of magic and fun we miss what is right in front of us. Sugar fuelled plastic fun that costs the earth and is never quite enough to satisfy and is ever escalating misses the importance of connection, spirituality, nature and depth. The simplicity is lost.

I am as guilty as the next person. As you reach peak excitement at some point in the process. The only way is down….

You need none of that shite and can pretty much pick what you feel comfortable with, as long as you are not a slave to posting everything on social media.

What we do is often low-key and free. Nature walks (even when I lived in big cities there was always some big, green spot to explore), baking and cooking, crafting, gaming, gardening, some silly science project. We do something most weekends, but it's nothing to brag about on Instagram.

The kids get pocket money - that's for their treats, and they have learned to save up for bigger things.

You're the parent. You choose.

If I had my time again - I would scale it all back, focus on people and community and nature.

This!

Did you not do a North Pole Breakfast?!
Practically reportable to SS.

Not every family is doing all those things, many will just be doing a few. But generally yes, I see a few families who are doing everything and then can’t understand why their children are over excited, overwhelmed, misbehaving and are unhappy.

@Cherrysoup I get that children need daily walking or exercise. It’s important for everyone. It can be more difficult this time of year with high winds and rain but generally the park, NT and swimming are all good. We can’t swim at the moment and there is a storm again today and I’m wondering what exercise we can do today. I’m getting lockdown flash backs and thinking we’ll have a dance party.

I agree.
When my DD (Now 33) was little, she barely got treats outside of special occasions..i couldn't afford it..she had pocket money but no big gestures outside of special occasions. She loved Christmas i feel because of this. This xmas eve box, matching pyjamas, events to go to etc is too much and yes i think the main event loses its sparkle because of it all. I used to buy us both new pyjamas for Xmas eve but no other treats.
It's very commercialized now

I love the dance party idea! The kids at school love that. Think my form are getting a little old for that-Year 10, but they've loved it to now. Sadly (well not really because it's quite fun watching the dogs fly round) I'll still have to trek through the mud today to walk the dogs.

I could write an extensive list of things that are considerably worse than a Christmas Eve Box.

Our version is new pjs (which they needed anyway) and a picture book in a reused Christmas bag. It picks up an element of DH's culture where gifts where Christmas Eve before Midnight Mass, and Christmas Day was about more Mass and cooking/ eating the dinner. I don't think it's coincidental that the trend coincided with changes in demographics and more people in the UK who were raised with gifts on Christmas Eve in place of Christmas Day.

I keep it simple because that works for us. I'm not concerned that some people do it in a more elaborate way. It's hardly "the worst" (sic) of anything.

I never did do the Elf. That looked like too much like self-imposed pressure to maintain. There's also little grounding in tradition. Grottoes can be more elaborate now; some years we do a Winter Wonderland type thing, some years we keep it simpler.

I never have felt the need to keep up with everything everyone else looks like they're doing. For a start, DS1 would find it utterly overwhelming.
I think my biggest deviation from my childhood Christmasses towards "excess" is not deciding that 11 is too old for advent calendars. Heck when I went to uni, I finally got myself a chocolate one, and that was a Millenuium Special thar covered up to 31st Dec 😁

In majority of cases now both parents have to work so life is more hectic and there’s less chance for spontaneous’moments’ or experiences so things have to be scheduled in, that gives businesses the opportunity to provide a service offering seasonal activities I guess. It used to just be pantomimes now it’s light trails/ experiences/ winter wonderland type things etc . It’s just how it is now. Elf on the shelf I suppose is just an elaborate type of advent calendar

My DC's are early twenties, and we never did this. Some families did though. It's just different ways of living. We put the tree up week before Xmas, no pantomime (hate them), no going to see Father Xmas(creepy git), no Xmas Eve boxes, or pyjamas (not a thing), definitely no Elf on the Shelf. We just spent the time visiting family, and eating a lot, and lots of gifting. Always out to dinner once or twice too. After the Xmas week everyone had had enough of even this, so not deprived in any way. Not an issue of money either, just liked different things.