Anyone doing a 1st December box??

[Peopleplease]

Instead of a Christmas Eve box I decided to do a 1st December box.

A lot of it is stuff I already have (Santa duvet, plate & cup, books)

I’ve got some new books, new pjs, an advent calendar. I Bought her a little activity book but I can’t find it!

Anyone else doing anything like this??

I really want to get a really nice reusable advent calendar. DD1 is only 4 so still just wants chocolate!

My exact thought was "what fresh hell is this?" OnlyLivingBoy

But having read the thread it seems to just be a new term for getting the decorations out of the attic

So yes, I do have a box of decorations and Christmas crap which I will probably get out the attic this weekend.

Have just organised my 1st December boxes. New Xmas jumpers, a chocolate advent calendar. 2 recycled old playmobil calendars are being reused. Plus daily advent activities - hot chocolate in pjs, sing a Christmas carol, disco in the living room (we have flashing disco lights somewhere), read the nativity story, breakfast with santa, food to a food bank, spot the big 5 walk, make Xmas cards, make shortbread, church carol service. Just little activities. Works well for us as we spend Xmas day to the 30th Dec travelling round relatives. It was important for us to have our own traditions too.

I'm quite anti consumerism and adding to the flood of meaningless tat that the kids tear the paper off and promptly break/lose, and among the family the adults have a policy of consumable gifts only as we all live in tiny houses on tight budgets, so I love the Christmas Eve box. I invest in that instead, (give one to several of my siblings instead of gifts for everyone) and it makes for a really nice family evening. Nice biscuits, a posh hot chocolate, new pyjamas - and not Christmas ones, just nice ones they'll wear until they grow out of - a new book for bedtime, a board game this year since they're old enough now, a dvd of a film they haven't seen before, and a bottle of prosecco and some posh bath stuff for when they're finally asleep. My siblings love it. I ask every year if they want proper gifts or a box and the box is the preferred option.

A week or two back I saw Aldi had advent colouring books and nabbed a couple for my brother's kids, as his daughter has ASD and finds the build up to Christmas hard to handle, and finds reading/colouring/drawing soothing.

peopleplease you can put chocolate in the reusable ones

We don't do boxes but Advent does come with it's own traditions for us. Dec 1st decorations come out (everything except the tree), set up the Nativity, DC decorate their rooms and we have some Christmassy food on the go.

We also do something called Advent Promises. 24 little pieces of paper each with a promise written on. Eg 'I promise to do something kind today'. Put in a glass jar. Each day of Advent each child takes a promise out of the Promise Jar.

We also do Advent calenders. 1 traditional. 1 choc.

I love Advent. Even more than Christmas Day! Not much buying/consuming involved if you don't want it.

satsuki she wants the character ones. It was paw patrol last year and my little pony this year. So

Never. We have too much stuff already, I don't need an excuse to buy even more!

No.

Advent calendar - one with pictures behind the doors, not chocolate or yet more plastic tat- and then presents on Christmas day.
Will be getting the decorations out of the attic, and the kids doing some craft stuff such as an advent wreath but no gifts until the day itself.

Hmph, my sadness with this stuff is that there is so much build up everywhere that by Boxing Day everyone is sick of it and that's that, Christmas is over. I miss the rest of the 12 days of Xmas!

Gotta move with the times though and accept that it's shifted, hey ho.

I have just put my DD Christmas Hamper (well its a big tote bag decorated with gingerbread men ) in her room , she's fast asleep.

She can use the bag to hold random tat or papers.

Bathrobe, PJs, tiny bottle of perfume (Advent Gift 1) her Thorntons Gruffalo Calender, Lush Snow Fairy wand bath thingie.

DS is stubbornly awake so his can wait .He needs a new ribe anyway he's mooching about looking like Steptoe !

I debated between Christmas Eve/December 1st boxes and have bought it all but instead I’ve decided to do a little something special on each Saturday leading up to Christmas. So this Saturday is our North Pole breakfast, next weekend it’s pj day (they get Their Christmas pjs), following one will be Christmas bedding and the final Saturday is a trip to Santa

Never heard of a 1st December box. We basically just do a present on Christmas Day. The only extra would be from Secret Santa and work presents.

Oh I see what you mean! I’ve had wooden from the beginning so they’ve never asked for the other kind, got lucky with it.

But scrubbygarden do whatever you want! I love the time after Christmas. Christmas Eve onward is just the best.

Oh I know satsuki but it's no fun being the only one in a Christmas jumper on the 5th of January, and everyone is back at work by then anyway, pah!
But yes, the principle holds, its all voluntary and we all get to decide the bits we do and don't do

We try to keep it fun by making advent and Christmas two distinct times.

So advent is about preparation, with baking and making things, and sending cards, and festive books, and Christmas fairs and markets, and elves, and good deeds, and jumpers and decorating and all that stuff. It's more about anticipation and doing things for other people, and making those things fun.

And then Christmas is for the full-on merry-making, so we eat the food and play with the presents and go to the pantomime and the cinema and the ice-rink, and the new year's parties, and then we pack everything up on Twelfth night, have one last big feast for Epiphany with special cake and then get back to normal.

Personally I think if you go too overboard it dilutes the magic for children.

Each to their own.

I love the time after Christmas. Christmas Eve onward is just the best.

I'm the exact opposite. The time from mid-November to Christmas Eve feels much more "Christmassy" than the actual Christmas period.

I hate the time from Boxing Day onwards, especially New Year which I find incredibly depressing. Kids have been and gone, all the excitement is over, weather is generally shit and I'm bored with being stuck at home and desperate to get back to work and get back to normality. I enjoy advent and the day itself ( love Christmas Eve) but am seriously done with it all by end of December

broomstick I love your post, that’s exactly how I feel about it. Eating the food, playing with the new things, wearing the new clothes, long walks, steam train rides, cold windswept beaches, board games. My husband always tries to get that time off so it’s one of the only real family times we get. We see family over the whole week as we don’t all gather on one day, and my daughter’s birthday is in that period as well so we try and have a day out for her as well as a break for birthday celebrations.

As a child, Boxing Day was my favourite day of the whole Christmas period. None of the tension of the buil up, and coming down the next day to find it hadn’t been a dream, and really discovering your new toys, reading your new book etc

No but a 1st December box makes more sense to me than a Xmas Eve box as you can get more use out of the items over the month x

@broomstickoflove

We’re the same. Advent is for preparations, Christmas is the start of the celebrating.

I've done them since dd was born 7 years ago. As always it will be an advent calendar, socks, pjs, colouring book, cup (all christmas themed) possibly a few of the little blind bag toys she is into now similar type stuff.

I'm also sorting a halloween bag for her in the same way.