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'm not sure why people are so baffled about people watching DVDs. It's not like we are saying we're going to crack out the Betamax!

DVDs are still for sale and you can still buy players. We have a mix of those and Blu Ray discs in our house. Or sometimes we watch something on Now / Netflix / Prime or whatever as we also have a smart TV. It's perfectly possible to mix technologies!

It appears to be another way for some people to get snarky to others who do the box.

And it's possible to have questioning kids who also believe in magic, Alexa. I have such wonderful creatures. But I suppose they need exposing to 'magic' to believe in it! 🎄🎅🎄🎅

I’ll point out during all this ‘expense’ lark.

Poundland have xmas bath bombs for £1!

I have an xmas budget dependent on how much money I have that year.
Xmas eve stuff comes out of that once I’ve done ds gifts, family gifts, xmas jumper and food etc.
Never once has a few cheap things been pooh poohed just because heat before we did cinema.

The issue isn’t doing it - the the attitudes of the children it’s being done for.

I've always done one.

Consists of pjs/dvd or board game/sweet treat (think gingerbread man etc)

This year it is pjs/bathbomb and a book for some quiet time (where's wally kinda books)

Mine are 13 & 11 and I'll try and keep that tradition going a little bit.

I didn't have much as a kid so I always tend to over compensate.🤷🏼‍♀️🎄

Expat are you saying that in your house santa has quiche?? Or is that just a word I don't know :o

We don't have boxes, but we do have Christmas Eve traditions. We decorate the Christmas tree and bring out the same Christmas stories to read in front of the fire. There's always a special evening meal with grandparents and then the Christmas Eve service. New pyjamas also make an appearance if I remember!

We've done it for the past 10 years and so it certainly isn't a new thing.

The elves bring one box to share and leave it magically on the doorstep. It contains:

new pyjamas (which they would otherwise have had the following day anyway)
santa hats
hot chocolate
some chocolate coins
a book to read as a family (we've had the two Matt Haig Christmas ones for the past two years and so everyone is excited about the third one)

It's a christmas tradition, it means they are in nice PJs for the christmas morning photos and even DS1 (13 and becoming too cool for school) still joins in with the "magic" and so its staying.

Oh and a bath bomb each for their bath.

I've never heard of this and am none-the-wiser!
So the elves arrive on the doorstep 6hrs before Father Christmas and leave a box in your house? Since when are the elves taking over Christmas? Are these box-leaving elves in league with the Shelf Elf to usurp the true meaning of Christmas (i.e. Father Christmas arriving in large Coca Cola lorry?).

forest the elves play a big part in Christmas in our house. They keep an eye on behaviour all year through the burglar alarm motion sensors and they bring pyjamas and hot chocolate. Its hardly taking over from FC.

Did it for the first time last year but think I went a bit overboard, not in cost terms but in the amount of stuff I put in.

iirc it was Christmas Eve pyjamas that they've always had anyway ( and their grandad always brings new pj's xmas eve too which they wear Christmas night )

Various forms of chocolate/sweets, a Santa key for dd, Christmas craft sets, a DVD each, Christmas slipper socks, various other bits and bobs.

To be honest they were only interested in the chocolate and dd who was 5 nearly 6 wanted to get the craft stuff out at bedtime!

This year I'm not going to bother, new pj's, DVD ( always done this ) and chocolates and that's it.

They will be getting far too much on Christmas morning anyway.

I have decided to buy some craft for dd to do during Christmas Eve afternoon to keep her entertained with dp whilst I do my big Christmas Eve clean.

Ds is nearly 15 and goes to the cinema every Christmas Eve and for a meal so he's not bothered.

I wondered why marks and Spencer had a huge pj display in the front of the store! Now I know! All these Christmas pj people.

I am sick of any Christmas Robins/Santa /snowman embroidery by the 27th so can't bear Xmas pj's

I don't buy Christmas themed pyjamas, and for the last couple of years my ds just prefers lounge pants as he's 6ft and says he feels weird in pyjamas now

I never buy christmas themed PJs just new PJs. They wear them all year round

None of us actually wear pj's. Just the bottoms. Baggy t shirts, vests or sweatshirts depending on the weather!

We don't do them. I'd never heard of them until I saw a box in ASDA. They'd put pj's, socks etc etc in a display box and I was staring hard at it thinking that £2.50 seemed cheap for all of that, even by ASDA standards. Then a shop assistant asked if I was ok and when I said, that's cheap, she pointed out that it was £2.50 for the empty box. I think I was having a moment!

Anyway, it's not for us. None of us wear pj's ever anyway . We watch Elf (on DVD) whilst eating our Christmas eve buffet. Presents wait till Christmas day.

I know that people are saying it's not more consumerism because they are only giving stuff that the kids would get anyway, but I just feel that we're going to be lead straight down the consumerist path with this and in 20 years time this humble little tradition will have taken on a life of its own.

it is whatever you want it to be..

For me it is new pj's, a DVD to put on before bed, craft thing for the day and a sachet of hot chocolate..

He is far more interested in his pj's than he would be Christmas day and then he is ready for the photo's in the morning

We have done it for 16 years now

It was just pjs and a book

Now its the same plus boxer shorts/ parnts and socks for the next day

Christmas shower gel and a bit of chocolate...thats pretty much it i think

Ready for the photos?

Ah. We never take em on Christmas day. Maybe one round the table.

I wasn't going to but dp insisted we give it a go this year and to be honest I'm looking forward to it now. I've got them new pjs, a Christmas activity book for the eldest and story book for the youngest, a little net of santa/snowman chocolates and some hot chocolate.

It was pretty cheap, the books and chocolates were from aldi, pjs from Asda and the hot chocolate mix was from the school Christmas fair. We would have bought all this stuff anyway, the only extra thing I bought were the boxes from Asda.

Each to their own, you will never catch me doing elf on the pissing shelf though!

There are no elves involved in ours.

Of course shops will try and sell things back to people as is their way, but whether you buy into that is up to you.

Our main part of the day is a walk and stories and making the mince pies for Father Christmas, new pyjamas and special bath stuff is just something to help them get ready for bed, and they get more attention than they would on the day as they don’t usually have time for a bath Christmas evening as there’s too much else going on.

People have said it ramps up the excitement, or it that it dilutes the excitement, well I’ve found it does neither. Just simmering at a nice amount

ovo that’s lovely

No, not something I do. I think the youtube vloggers have made this a big thing and lots of people are following suit. I am all for just giving the presents on Christmas day rather than the added stress of a Christmas Eve box with more gifts to think about getting. I just let my children open one of the presents under our tree on Christmas Eve which are the small ones usually from family.

Yes, we do.

Ours is a "wind-down to bedtime" box. We have dinner, then light the Christmas candle (to show that we have room in our Inn for any weary travelers), remind ourselves of the good and bad things in the past year, and say a prayer of thanksgiving for the good things, and a prayer for the people who have died.

Then we get out the box, which has DD's plastic Santa plate and glass (in use all of December for many years now) and her stocking, new PJs for the whole family, lush festive bath bomb each for DD and I, nice hot choc for us all and possibly a Christmas beer for DH, and the family copy of "Twas the night before Christmas" that was bought for DD's first Christmas and is the traditional Christmas Eve bedtime story (even still at 11! She's already checked I have it!).

DD lays out the cookies and milk and carrot for Santa and the reindeer, and her stocking, then heads up for a bath, comes back down in cosy pjs for hot choc and then snuggles in bed with the story.

The box is also a cardboard box that is many years old and stores the Christmas DVDs and books most of the year (we have a bit of a collection!). The pjs are not necessarily festive designs (depends on what I see that looks good for our needs) but always useful to have new ones in winter. Most things are re-used year after year. The only consumables parts are the bath bombs (and we like lush ones on special occasions) and the hot chocolate (which we also like a fair amount but a special type on Christmas is a treat).

0v0 that is touching and a wonderful way to keep your ds2's memory alive and make him a part of Christmas each year. Thanks for sharing.

In our case, the new contents in the box probably cost me about €100 every year (mostly because the pjs for DH and I are not terribly cheap - but we want to be comfortable). But we wear the PJs a lot (most of them are not actually festive designs - and I don't care about wearing 1 pair of candy cane ones in February if it is a cold night and those are the clean cosy ones!).

As for the other expenses, maybe €8 on 2 bath bombs, which get used with relish. €5 at most on a Christmas beer (that DH will really enjoy - and I'd probably get anyway). €10 or so on 3 "lumps of chocolate on a wooden spoon" type of hot chocolate. All of which will be used that evening except my bath bomb (which is whenever I get a quiet evening before going back to work).

And yes, DD (and us) do need new PJs on a reasonably frequent basis. Between people changing size and shape, and wearing out older pairs - is it not reasonable to get a new pair once a year? Are we only supposed to have a single pair that gets washed and worn 365 days/year?!

And the year that we knew the holiday cottage we were staying in didn't have a bath, I got small festive shower gels from Lush instead and both bottles were completely gone before we left the cottage at the end of the week.....saved on bringing half-used bottles back with us.