Minimalist yet magical Christmas?

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Maybe your house is bursting at the seams with toys already and your children don't play with half of them?
Perhaps you feel Christmas has become excessively consumerist?
Or simply you're on a tight budget?

Whatever the reason, please use this thread to share ideas for how to cut down on the excess and still keep Christmas magical.

Mine are all teens and older now, but when they were younger we used to pull IL cousin names out of a hat. Each cousin got the name of another cousin. Having five DCs meant I bought five gifts. The DCs got a gift from whatever cousin had picked their name. Because we lived 8 hours from the nearest cousin we used to send them in the mail and the DCs got their gifts in the mail too - very exciting for everyone.

This was a vast improvement over all the adults buying gifts for all the other adults and children. Everyone felt that was far too much, both on the giving and on the receiving end, and for us, trying to haul the loot home again was a nightmare.

For Christmas gifts for the DCs I usually got a few items that coincided with their interests. So art supplies, crafts, a few board games, DVDs, dolls, little doll buggies, a dolls house, skates, kits of various sorts for DS. I always got books too. I still get a DVD for the family every year, but I get perfume and other similar items for the DDs, and DS always appreciates clothes. Last year's hits were really nice pajamas for the two younger DDs, a foot pampering set for DD2, and a memory foam pillow for DS. I got DD1 some couch pillows for her apartment. The DCs also get each other gifts for Christmas at this stage. This tradition started spontaneously, and it's really nice.

Oh and I got DD4 a real, grown up cake decorating set one year that she got endless use out of. That was the gift that kept on giving.

Imaginabox cradle is £2.93 on Amazon instead of £9.99.

I love the photobook idea. Any recommendations on which company is best?
I'm in for a minimal yet magical ( cheesy) Christmas. Luckily my family feel the same, it's how we've always been! DP's family are another matter though... It's quantity not quality in there minds.
I think we are getting DD(3.10) a trampoline..but we may not buy it till next year. Otherwise it's just her advent calendar with pouches for each day, which include cat treats, for the cat obviously, a silly soap, a special chocolate to give to daddy when he comes in, a wind up toy or hair clips. A stocking on Christmas Day which includes normally a DVD, tights or something for her Christmas Day outfit, and a fidget play toy. I would love to put a photo book in her stocking. I've previously put in a personalised story book but wasn't very impressed with them.

I've just realised I called the tread title " cheesy" in my post. Oh dear. No offence was meant... Argh, why did I do that? I thought I was being clever with words on my own! Sorry!

Hello - just moved to this thread from the Christmas bargains one! Had lots of vicarious bathtub hunting now I'm settling down for a bit of vicarious minimalism

I've been pondering this some more! My main need is to continue decluttering. We are still in a mess but have made a huge amount of progress, and I really want to be sorted by the big day so when we get home with presents they can really be played with and appreciated fully.

It's going to bring different challenges this year though as for the first time ever we will not be at home! We will be staying at my mums over the main few days, but we are spending most of the day itself at a friend's house. I mentioned earlier in the thread that they don't really do 'festive' or even play games really, well mum actually said this year that she would rather we had a great time somewhere else! In a nice way I mean. Her words "you know we are rubbish at Xmas!" So I'm really looking forward to seeing friends, it will be a new experience as we've not done that for Xmas before.

What a great thread - we are trying to reduce the amount of stuff in the house - have a long way to go but don't want to add excessive amounts over Christmas. We will be trying to do mostly consumable and practical things. Dd wants a camera which will probably be for her birthday too as it is a more expensive item but no ideas for ds yet.

Toots38 no offence wrt the thread title

I've now started shopping and am really putting a lot of thought into the gifts for other households. I hadn't heard of mismatch tights will be great for my neice but she's tall so I need to find age 12 size. Any ideas?