Do you like Christmas Eve boxes?

[lottieandmia22]

I'm not sure whether to do one this year. I kind of feel that present giving should be on Christmas Day. OTOH it's making the most of Christmas perhaps?

I tell you what, I'll give them to them on Christmas morning instead. Does that make it better for you?

Yes because gifts are given on Christmas Day, why do the need new PJs to sleep in on C Eve?? What's so awful about sleeping in the ones they already have? Why are they needed for that night?

What is the harm in spreading out? Why does it bother you so much that you have to come on and sneer at other people's enjoyment.

In any event lots of people do their presents on Christmas eve.

Followed this thread last night and shocked it's still going - 12 pages!! Well, as you're here...I think this idea of boxes of Xmas eve is weird because I've never known it. It's a new tradition. Fine. I accept things change. Fads come and go. BUT. I just can't help thinking of the mental load. All these women, who have to run around planning, organising, buying and then wrapping (FFS - I HATE wrapping, I just can't do it) xmas gifts for kids, OH, and all relations, now has to be repeated for the day before too. Don't say it's just a little this or a little that, no bother. To me, this would be a huge bother. Thought time, worried about fucking-it-up-head-time, actual doing-it-time. All for what, really? No one loves mums more for doing it all. Dads just sit back and enjoy, same as the kids. They just like having the extra presents.

I have never really known it as a 'Christmas Eve' box or anything, but ever since DD was tiny she has always had the Christmas Fairy arrive, at my parents house where we visit during the day on Christmas Eve. She is now 15y so, this started way before FB, and depth being a teen she still loves the idea.

Christmas Fairy delivers new PJs and some sweets/chocolate. Sometimes a small soft toy or a new Christmas book. My mum has always been in charge of it. She does the same for my little nephew too. DD looks forward to it - its just a nice part of our Christmas prep.

This won't go down well on MN, but as kids my DM kept a present back for Boxing Day, it was always a Family Game of some sort (I'm still awaiting Buckaroo but that's a thread by itself).
I like Christmas Eve boxes, as children we always opened a present before bed.

We don’t do them, I don’t see the need to spend extra cash on xmas eve! They get loads on xmas day and I love the exciting build up, as do they!

I dont have kids but every year I have the same Christmas Eve routine rather than a Christmas Eve box. Get up, have breakfast, cook gammon ready for xmas and have a cooked lunch of gammon, egg and chips. Then I'll have a bath in the afternoon and put on new Pjs I've bought, watch National Lampoons Cristmas Vacation while snacking on whatever we've bought leading up to Xmas, usually popcorn, nuts or Doritos and dip. We don't have much of an evening meal, usually just eat things like cheese, crackers, cocktail sausages and ham. Watch crap on tv and have a hot chocolate which I've already got in, bring gifts downstairs and go to bed.

I've done this for years, I love pjs and christmas so use Xmas eve as an excuse to buy another pair I just like the routine. Really gets me in the mood for Christmas.

We do them, new pjs, hot choc, bubble bath, dvd, biscuits and a game or craft activity.

We do the activity, have a bath and put the pjs on and then watch the film with the biscuits, then the kids go to bed.

Meh, I used to do it but it just became yet another faff. The only thing we do now on Christmas Eve is leave a plate out for Santa.

@FlyTipper You've hit the nail on the head for me.

My DH is the main wage earner and that seems to earn him an "out" with regard to any of the actual home stuff. Which is fine, that's how it works for us, but it means I've a much bigger mental load at this time of year. I tried to be the "Perfect" Mum when my kids were very young and had the home-made Advent Calendars, the Book Advent Calendar, the Christmas PJs, Christmas Jumpers, Christmas Experience (Santa apparently has to be an "Experience" now) with real Reindeer (kids couldn't have cared less), Real Tree, Handmade Decorations, Christmas Dinner with all the Trimmings - I end up fucking exhausted and pissed off and annoyed at everyone. Haven't done a tap this year - I've bought gifts and that's it, I haven't ordered the turkey and ham, I'll buy whatever's in the shop next week. I haven't handmade anything, I haven't booked "an experience", we're not having any in-laws for dinner this year so on Christmas Day provided nobody catches the inevitable virus that seems to happen every fucking year I'll be eating Pringles and drinking Baileys by 5pm Christmas Day, all done. Sick of all the planning and listing and faffing.

Real reindeer?

Is that like the one I saw on that Liberty Xmas programme last night that costs £695???

Oh christ @lottieandmia22 I didn't buy a real Reindeer!! We took the kids to a Santa "Experience" - are they a big thing in the UK yet? They've become massive in Ireland over the past few years. There are Santa trains, Santa workshops, all that stuff. We did a kind of tour one on a farm that had a real camel, a Mary & Joseph in a stable, real reindeer, a toy workshop, all that stuff. It was nice but a one-off, people seem to try and outdo each other with them every year here, they've become a massive thing.

I've done a xmas eve box for the past few years, this year in it is a new onesie, lush xmas jumper bath bomb, Harry Potter fleece blanket, terrys choc orange, the christmasaurus music book and 2 new stockings: one Harry Potter and one Harley Quinn. My daughter loves looking for it on xmas eve afternoon when the elf leaves.

..... What the fuck is an elf on the shelf?

I am torn between really liking the idea of a CE box and thinking they’re too much. I think the “too much” view comes from the grumpy old fart, GOF, in me, the one who says, ‘When I was young, we had to walk 10 miles to school, in 10 feet* of snow, uphill both ways.”

The GOF in me remembers my childhood Christmases, which I loved, when pjs, any books, special mugs, and whatever corresponding ‘70s technology equates to a dvd, would all have been actual presents to open on Christmas Day. So GOF wonders why “kids today” get or need so much stuff!

The other part of me, let’s call her “Mary Xmas”, really gets into the excitement that my young niece is experiencing right now. It’s not just vicarious enjoyment. We do crafts together, listening to Christmas music, watch Arthur Christmas, etc., and I love it all as much as she does. Mary Xmas also can’t stop eyeing things in the stores, wondering if niece would like them, when all presents have already been bought. CE boxes would be another fun thing to do, but her mum is already doing so much for the holidays and I usually don’t stay over on Christmas Eve so there would be no point in me doing one. I don’t know what Mary Xmas is going to do when niece grows up.

*It sounds more extreme in imperial, rather than metric.

Christmases were just a bit shit and fraught when I was a child, and Christmas Eve was usually just me and my sister . I love doing stuff like this for my dcs - I don't spend anything that I wouldn't spend anyway, it is silly and it changes a little bit every year as the dkds get older, dh and I both do bits of it. I

Basically, if you don't want to do stuff, don't do it!

I am on the fence with Christmas eve present, in general I don't think it means spending more unless people really go to town, if it's just new PJs they will prob be appreciated more on Christmas eve than on Christmas day amongst the rest of the presents, they will also be more appreciated then than at the rest of the year because it's part of the getting ready for Christmas excitement. The problem is when they don't need more PJs but the tradition has been put in pace for years and they are bought for the sake of it.

Ah I see - I had heard of Lapland U.K. which I think is a Santa 'experience'.

Wow. If I were still a kid this would be just one more thing my family didn’t do - because we were deprived kids, as in actually deprived, so one more thing our family would fail at.

Christ. Which this has absolutely nothing to do with, and I’m not even religious.

I really really don't understand why people get angry or upset or confused by someone doing something that they want to do but that's different from what others might do. Everyone is different, that's ok.

What you don’t understand it even if it’s just more made up nonsense created to make people spend money they don’t have?

It’s not difficult.

Mine get PJs. That’s it.
We always watch the same Christmassy film, read The night before Christmas (my dc are teens now but still expect dh to read it ) and then off to bed.

I have to say all the other stuff (belief bells etc) just set my teeth on edge. My dc loved Father Christmas as much as any anyone else but it was just low key - carrots and water outside for the reindeer and a mince pie and milk left downstairs. Everything else just seems TOO much. Parents trying so hard to create the magic instead they create an expensive rod for their own backs and kids who just expect more, more, more. I really feel for families like otter’s.

That said

That said...

I hope everyone has a great Christmas Eve, it is a magical day .

If my kids were little, I'd definitely do a Christmas Eve box.