Child-free MNers: How much do you spend on Christmas?

[KStockHERO]

This thread is for MNers who don't have children. I'm not asking about or interested in the opinions of people with children, even grown up children.

So, just that - If you don't have children, how much does a typical Christmas cost you? That's including food, drink, outings, events, presents, decorations. Everything that you'd class as 'Christmas'.

Last year my mum visited and made several comments about how OTT we were at Christmas because, of course, Christmas is for children and no-one else should enjoy it. So we totted it up and we'd spent about £2,000 😮

My mum nearly had a conniption fit because given that Christmas is for children and no-one else should enjoy it, a childfree couple spending money on themselves, each other, food drink, the house, and general fun is a terrible, terrible thing.

You may as well ask how long is a piece of string.

Whether you have children is irrelevant. It's more about your income, priorities and wishes.

Zero - £10 max. We just have whatever we would normally buy plus cheese footballs for Dh as Christmas seems to be the only
time they land in the shops.
we take the view of why wait until 25th dec to but each other a gift? Why not give a gift/treat when we want to / see something we need or want and can afford? We are not religious. We don’t do Xmas for others unless unavoidable eg due to work politics.

I spend around £150 on travel, £800+ on accommodation, plus approx £600 on gifts. Probably only £100-ish on food as my family tends to cover those costs to compensate for me having to travel and pay for accommodation (due to allergies).

Edit: just to be clear, no children are involved thank goodness!

Oh gosh hundreds and hundreds, I wouldn't want to add it up but we've been together 10 years now so it getting cheaper but I buy one new decoration each year, last year it was a mantelpiece decoration with fairy lights. Year before trainset, booze few hundred food ruinous amounts, presents maybe 1000,00 this year we are belt tightening tho as oh made redundant. I have done the meat shop to be delivered on 20th Dec £175,00 booze delivered on 21st Dec £200 then a normal Tesco shop for 21st Dec £200 at the minute that's snacks puddings etc and the standard weeks shop. We normally have three weeks to a month off tho, so it has to last. We don't see family or have guests we hibernate. It's lovely 😍😍

About £2500 for everything, we love Christmas and shopping for presents and food and doing christmassy things.

Zero. We don't do gifts. We don't decorate either. We send cards to elderly relatives who seem to insist on them but they come from a. Big box we bought years ago.

We drink and eat heartily with friends though so I guess we spend a couple hundred on cheese.

Ha, my DP is a cheese football fiend as well. We normally get several tubs so that can run into £10+ just on cheese footballs.
We buy cheese balls throughout the year but, apparently, they're not the same.

This year it won't be a lot, my dad is sick and we lost my sister last year(the week before xmas). So I doubt we'll have a big meal or do much in the way of gifts.

I've repurposed my Xmas budget to Black Friday handbags.

I was just saying to my husband yesterday, why are there so many good cheese things at Christmas and then not the rest of the year after seeing Morrisons have what seems like 100 new cheese products! Why does everyone love cheese at Christmas and not the rest of the year? (According to supermarkets anyway).

I'm really sorry to hear about your dad being sick and your loss of your sister, I hope you're doing as well as you can be and that you have a good black Friday.

That's so shit @jay55 I'm sorry you're having such a shit time. I really hope you find something lovely at the Black Friday sales

We'll be at around £200 on food and booze but have a cap of £100 for presents for each other. We tend to buy big presents for each other or go away for birthdays instead of Christmas.

I've spent about £500 on parents, brother and gran tho.

@KStockHERO cheese footballs rock (apparently!). Dh agrees - November / December purchases are the best, but must be eaten before mid January.

I’ve never seen them at other times, but might run a blind tasting session next year, if I can find some during spring and summer!

@Alphabet1spaghetti2 I feel like Amazon might be the answer to the year-round cheese football shortage...https://www.amazon.co.uk/cheese-footballs/s?k=cheese+footballs

Well, I don't "do" Christmas myself, but back in the day I used to spend several hundred pounds a year on presents for nieces & nephews/godchildren/ friends' kids..... the irony! Thank goodness I called a halt when they each reached 18 (or 21, if at uni). It all got very expensive 🤣

@KStockHERO fab! Now I know what to add to every one of my purchases! Mwah ha ha - let the experiment commence!!

Christmas isn’t a big thing in our house. We don’t have children and we come from small families ourselves. We are not party people or materialistic (I, in particular, detest mindless, wasteful consumerism) so that doesn’t leave much scope for spending.

We don’t have a tree, or any decorations or a Turkey. We do, however, take the opportunity to over-indulge in nice food & wine, like everyone else. In total, we probably spend around £200 on food & drink and I probably spend about the same on presents.

Sorry Christmas lovers on this thread - apparently Christmas without children is lame, a letdown, unmagical and pointless.

Probably in the £2-2.5k range. Not doing massively expensive gifts for each other but there are lots of children (friends and family) for us to spoil and we are travelling abroad to spend new year with DH's family which is bumping up the cost. Entertaining on Christmas Eve and Boxing Day too so will probably spend around £500 on food/drink.

About £100 on presents for my husband. £50 each for my parents. £30-50 each for brothers and nephew. I don’t generally buy for anyone else, my husband’s name goes on the things I buy, and he buys for his family and adds my name. Probably £100 on decorations, which is ridiculous, but they’re my favourite bit. No idea how much on food, but we don’t hold back, and we also drink a bottle of wine a night for the week. And then another £150 maybe on a night out for the two of us- we always go to the same Italian near us in the run-up- and probably about the same on other social events. Wow, I’ve never added that up before, but getting on for a grand. But having a nice life does sometimes cost, especially in winter.

Ooh we never really looked at that properly, just bought what we liked.
Depends if my mum joins us or if we go to her and my family.

If it's just 2 of us, excluding presents, I would say 200 for food for 3 days, + drinks 100 or so. Lots of nice beer, lots of cheese, duck, sides, homemade pickled sausages, sauerkraut (even made fermented brussel sprouts and they were delicious), nice baguettes and bread, fruit, cured meats and so on. It's a Feast with Christmas movie marathons, some traditions and Monopoly.
I buy extra decs for collection in January😂 Always under 50. Once I shall have museum worthy amount of garlands.

If my mum or family join us, it can be about 400+ food, 300 drinks for 3 days.
Presents go into hundreds for just 2 of us, so obviously ++depending on how many family joined. If we go to mine, it's usually nowadays 400+plane tickets to include suitcases and shitton of chocolate and presents because there are GPs, couple of uncles and aunts, few cousins etc extra to buy for. Flew with 3x2kg heroes few years back😂 so basically I think 2k depending on how early I get tickets. I miss £30 flights even over Christmas...

Will spend an extra €100 or so on food - whole fillet of beef for Christmas day and more booze/chocolate than normal - plus €2/300 on pressies for my DP and I'll Amazon something to my mother (different country) so €500 tops.

It’s just going to be me and my mother this year, but even so we’re probably up to about £1000 between us on food, gifts, decorations and general Christmas mooching around. And neither of us really drink, so it’s not even as though there’s a hefty alcohol budget there.

@IGotItFromAgnes It's incredible how money can just disappear into the Christmas abyss even when you're not doing much or drinking alcohol.

Not that I'm complaining - I love Christmas and quite enjoy the mindless/frivolous spending <side-eyes the Pikachu soaps I bought DP last week for absolutely no reason>

Food - About £50 for Christmas dinner (if I am the one hosting it)
Drink - Would just be a couple of bottles of Cava, about £15
Outings - Don't do any special outings
Events - Don't do any events
Presents - say about £30 per present for four adults, so £120
Decorations - We use the same ones we've had for years so no cost