do you get the kids anything they want for xmas

[babyonbord]

i don't want to start a massive argument, i appreciate that everyone has different opinions but i am wondering if there are any likeminded people out there when it comes to buying your kids presents at christmas. My feeling is that as long as i can afford it (i understand some people cannot and that's different) the kids will get whatever they ask for regardless of how "overpriced" it is or whether they have 50 similar toys. i remember growing up how horrible it was being dissapointed on christmas day (which only happened when i didn't get the barbie mall i wanted but didn't actually exist) so i've got my ds1 everything he wanted and then some, as far as me and my dh are concerned the kids get what they want as long as it is physically doable regardless of how we feel about the toy.

I disagree btw about children not needing to know the value of money early on. If they grow up knowing they can't have everything then that's a good thing imo.

Ds has known since he could speak that some things are expensive and he can't have them. He knows that we go out to work to get money to pay for things. He doesn't question it, and it isn't a big deal.

(Caveat, I guess if money really isn't a big deal then that doesn't apply, but that's a very small proportion of families indeed.)

the octopod is fab - DShas that for his birthday, cept now he is aksing FC for the other half

suzi, I think it's important to know what things cost and that money has to be worked for, especially if money isn't a big deal

When the oldest were young, we would stroll around Toys R Us filling two trollies to overflowing and put it all on the Barcalycard.

The children would be almost sick with excitement on Christmas morning, tearing into their mountain of toys and it was a wonderful feeling for DH and I. But the New Year would bring the bills and we would spend half the year paying off the credit card bill, while most of the toys had been long-since discarded and forgotten.

i wonder if some of it has to do with how you were brought up, i can't remember a christmas where i didn't get everything i wanted (with the exception of the barbie mall lol), you only have to walk into my youngest brothers bedroom at my mums and there is every gadget known to man, i was brought up with a "pile em high" christmas so feel i want to do the same for mine, this yesar my eldest has from santa, a stocking, toffee the pony, 2 fisher price amazing animal totes and a tigger chase and a mamas and papas christmas crumble bear its so cute they each have one. Then from mummy and daddy under the tree he has a fisher price amazing animals train another tote and the crocodile, a large gruffalo teddy, the gruffalo dvd, 2 books, my puppy pal violet, twinkle twinkle little violet, goodnight upsy daisy, toy story 3 lotsa hugs bear which is making my living room smell of strawberries, and a makka pakka if i can find one i wanted to get him the toy story 6v ride on car but he is behind developmentally so too young to use it, so it's going to be a birthday pressie instead. My youngest has just about every lamaze toy under the sun and various other baby toys and a baby walker (he will only be 6 months)

don't buy everything mine want, as I said earlier and we do have a budget out of choice rather than necessity. On the other hand, if other people want to buy whatever the child wants and they want to spend a fortune which they can afford then they should if their children get some enjoyment out of it. I do get a bit about other people saying that is wrong. You do whatever you want to do if you don't harm anybody else and it makes your children happy - it is nobody else's business!

My only cause for concern is that the children don't get whatever they want at the drop of a hat, all the time - presents are for birthdays and Christmas and maybe the odd treat in between. I think there lies the road to ruin if you give into everything all the time but I bet in reality very few people have such bottomless pits for pockets and the vast majority realise that it isn't good to leave a child with nothing left to work for or dream about so I suspect that kind of parenting is rare.

OP - I hope you enjoy your Christmas and all the hard work you have put into it.

I only got to chose one thing for christmas (one big toy) for around £30 and then i would get a colouring book, socks, pj's, felt tip pens, playdough etc...

We would have a sack of presents but relitives presents would also be put in the sack (we had quite a few from relitives and friends), so it looked like we had a pile but only half was from father christmas and most of it was tat (but usefull tat).

I guess i buy my dd's more as we dont get much from relitives, i try and buy things that will last them the year ,we don't buy many new toys for the rest of the year but will buy 2nd hand at boot sales. Dd1's pile wont be huge this year but has cost me a lot more than last year as she has asked for more expensive things (lego and ds games).

TBH if the dd's get too much they get fed up with opening things, this year we are going to my dads for lunch and his partner does them a sack full of colouring books, puzzles etc.. so i have not bought to much of that kind of thing this year.

i don't agree with spoiling children all year round, presents are strictly christmas and birthdays when they get older they will get pocket money for helping round the house and will have to use that to buy what they want, the only time we got things bought for us with the exception of christmas, birthdays and easter was if we got a good report or good exam results, or in my case after various operations (for being brave lol) my sister had cancer when we were very young and my mum nearly lost her, i think thats why my mum spoilt us a bit growing up. I don't think anyone is right or wrong when it comes to how they choose to bring up their kids, as long as your kids have a loving secure home then everything else is moot

Considering what she has asked for in recent years 8 year old dd1 most certainly has not been given everything she asked for

Age 3: A laptop just like yours mummy
Age 4: A laptop
Age 5: A laptop and a NDS
Age 6: A laptop and her own phoneline and an iphone
Age 7: A poodle (an actual, live poodle) and accessories and a laptop or ipad
This year: A netbook (she realised they are considerbly cheaper than a laptops) and a poodle. She is getting a mini laptop. In another 5 years she might get a poodle

Dd2 gets everything she asks for but she only ever asks for dolls and crayons, bar this year when she asked for 'a telly with sound on, please' (their TV is broke)

"I do get a bit about other people saying that is wrong. You do whatever you want to do if you don't harm anybody else and it makes your children happy - it is nobody else's business!"

I think people are saying it is wrong for them and their children, not that its wrong for anyone else.

My kids are young and they only watch CBeebies so they don't ask for crazy expensive stuff yet, so I do try and get them what they want to keep the magic going.

Having said that, 5yo DD1 has said she wants a pony (WTAF?) so I've had to tell her Santa doesn't "do" livestock . I guess it's easier to say no if the requests are on the crazy side...

my brother once asked for plane, he told my mum, when she asked where we would put it that santa could park it on the roof next to his sleigh needless to say he did not get one, i think most children have an understanding of what they can and can't ask for, to be honest mine would be happy with the tree and the santa decoration for it my mum bought for him, there's several hundred pounds worth of gifts under that b*dy tree and he's more interested in a santa decoration go figure lol

I do buy presents that DD has asked for, rather than what I want to buy her IYSWIM because I too am a Mr Frosty child. Although, my parents did go on to buy me a Mr Frosty for my 18th birthday so I tried to make frozen cocktails with it. They were right, it was crap!

DD (5) now refers to her letter to Santa as wishlist, and says that she is just wishing for some of the presents otherwise if she got all of them, she would be writing a shopping list and then she would be worse than Verruca Salt. I think that is a mish mash of what I have said to her over previous Christmases and having watched/read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory about a billion times. Works for us.

Ds is 9 and can ask FC for 3 things but they have to be relatively cheap small. The only thing he asked for that I didn't get was a tv for his bedroom but we did discuss it when he put in his request...and he'd drawn a lovely picture to show FC why he wanted it...the picture was of him in his bed, playing the recently donated ps2 through the requested tv . I think he was about 6 at the time.

This year he has asked for WWE wrestlers x5 and a wrestling ring (which apparently only counts as one present ), any ds or wii game and spongebob and cookie monster boxer shorts. I still have one wrestler to get but the other things on the list have come to £40 so far which I think is reasonable.

I was very when he mentioned the wrestlers as he's never shown an interest in them before and I feel 9 is quite old to start wanting to collect them but I found a good deal on two wrestlers and the ring so don't feel like I'm throwing my money away too much.

He is the only child in the family and gets a lot of presents from his gps and aunties so I try not to go too crazy but I find it very hard to not buy things when I think he'd really love them.

If he really wants something that's more expensive then he either contributes to it (his WII) or my mum, sisters and I share the cost of it for his main present (ds).

He really, really wants an xbox and has been asking for a couple of years. One of his mates has one and has lots of cod type games which I'm just not prepared to have in my house ever at this stage never. He already has a wii, a dsi and a ps2 so I really don't want another console added to the mix...not least because the games are so expensive. I may relent in a year or so maybe when the ps2 packs in.

Ds is only 4y11m so still young enough that he can be told guided towards what he wants.

He has asked for lego ninjago and he's not getting it but that's because he is getting a dsi, games, imaginxt etc etc.

We're lucky cos the kids get x amount from us each and then they get 50 quid each from one set of grandparents and 50-80. Each from the other set so they get more than one 'main' present iyswim. If they didn't get that then no we wouldn't be able to get them anything like as much.

they are getting gifts of my dhs' side just little things i think as his brother has 3 kids as well but my family are just puttin money in their savings as they know i've already bought them everything they want and then a few bits of tat just so they have something to unwrap when we visit

we did agree on a 150 pound limit each with them being so young but i think i can saftley say i've blown that out the water i think i need to learn the word no

no. dd1 (4.9) has been encouraged to believe that letters to Santa are expressions of interest only. Santa is magic, but his elves are not, and therefore subject to limited resources and market fluctuations like the rest of us.

this year she wanted "Rapunzel Makeup", by which I think she means the huuuuge £30 vanity case of makeup suitable for a much older girl that she store in the Disney Store. Santa has misunderstood this, and is delivering a small pack of Tangled lip glosses along with her other presents.

I give DS the ELC catalogue and tell him to pick what he wants. There are advantages to staff discount. I've been very lucky that he's never gone over the top and chose something from every page!
I have a strategic plan for when he grows out of ELC. I'll find a job working in a store that sells whatever he's into...

I have ruined my kids this year . I normally have a budget that I stick to, and I don't buy tat toys (I think I could be persuaded if either of them were desperate for something). I've certainly tried the brainwashing trick of trying to manipulate them into wanting something I've bought in the past .

But this Christmas I've been a bit unhinged. Let me say, OP, that I've been scared I would lose my daughter to cancer this year, so I can absolutely understand where your mum was coming from. Buying them loads won't cure her, but I have enjoyed doing it and we're clinging on to the hope of a lovely Christmas after this very shitty year. This isn't just about gifts, either, before people interpret what I've written as purely materialistic. I am incredibly thankful that she has survived this year and I will be valuing having my family around me. I don't want anything other than that for myself.

that must have been awful, i can't imagine anything worse and my heart goes out to you, i hope your daughter is well now and i hope you do have a lovely christmas, my son has a genetic condition he inherited from me and it's going to make his life difficult in the future so it makes me want to do everything in my power to make up for it now, if i have the power to bring him happiness regardless of how fleeting or materialistic then i'm going to do it thats my job as his mother, its an easy way of evening the balance

At the moment, yes, because their expectations arent too high. DS has asked for a particular DVD, some books and a DS game, for example, That's do-able for me. If he started asking for expensive stuff I couldnt afford or didn't think he should have, he wouldnt get them. Simple, really.

Not everything she asks for, no. My dd is 6 and last year actually wrote in her letter to Santa that she was suggesting lots of ideas so that santa can choose some of them but she doesn't expect them all. I think she quite likes the surprise. This year she said she doesn't know what she wants and Santa can choose. She did however tell Santa what her 3 month old brother wants though.

I could do I think what DS wants most in the world is an ostrich feather duster he's 15 mo but would it set a terrible precedent?

No, I won't.

This year DS1 aged 3.4 asked for one toy which cost £5 though so he has that plus some other things. We have also bought lots of books for him and his brother as they get older, lovely hardback sets of Thomas the Tank Engine and Beatrix Potter etc.