Is anyone else planning to cut down?

[Mallowmarshmallow]

Last year, with stockings and presents I'd accumulated along the way, my two ended up with much too much stuff. Too much food too. We are very much an out and about family so the house is full of toys that rarely get played with.

So I'm really hoping to cut down this year. For his birthday (in October) my DS(4) has already mentioned he'd like the Playmobil police stuff so my initial thoughts are that we buy the police station and when people ask what he wants we ask for connected accessories. I know he'll play with them too. I'm hoping something similar might crop up for Christmas....

I really want to focus on the experiences so panto, FC visit, days out in the lead up rather than loads and loads of presents.

It's the food side where I always go mad. It's like I think the Christmas apocalypse is on the way or something!

This year I really need to think more carefully about what I'm buying.

I do this whenever the shops are going to be closed for even a day. You should see me at Easter - litres of milk, loaves of bread, about a hundred toilet rolls.

It's cheese here. All of it! 🧀 🧀🧀🧀🧀

I will be cutting back this year as we are trying a more minimalist lifestyle. I will make some fruity gin for my SIL, give the children some things on their list, but probably ask my DH not to buy anything for me except things I might need. I will still be decorating our beautiful Christmas tree though, it's my favourite thing!

For the bargain hunters, Tesco direct have some great toys 50% off which is a great saving - I've got a couple of things ordered for birthday (in September) and Christmas

I will be drinking again after being pregnant and breastfeeding for what seems like ten years the last year, so I will be lavishly restocking the drinks cupboard above the oven cabinet with copious amounts of alcohol and other cocktail staples!!

I may cut back elsewhere.

I'm thinking of capping the number of presents to 12 per child. Cost not the issue as youngest 3 nearly all 2nd hand (eldest costs more but also had pre-loved when he was younger). But the amount of STUFF with x4 kids (and generous grandparents) is crazy.

I'm hoping it will make me only buy things they would love, rather than just 'filler' gifts to bulk up their pile.

I'm cutting back this year on presen ts for everyone and food. My kids received a tonne of 'stuff' which is ridiculous as they predominately play outside/draw/write. Toys are wasted on them as they're happy with paper Food I'm cutting back on as most of it g ot binned last year.

Yes, I'll be cutting down on quantity and increasing quality this year. I'm also trying very hard now to buy people things that they will like and use, not gadgets and decorative things they might not like. My sons (20's) are easy to buy for, clothes and nice cooking things.

I'm not sure I'm cutting back but I'm thinking more about what I buy.

I'll wait til closer to the time to think about main presents for my DC but other presents will have uses so each of them will get:

Dressing Gown
Pyjamas
Pants & socks - fun character ones
Heely style shoes
Duvet cover
Cushion/cuddly toy for their bedrooms
Bubble bath/bath bombs

I figure this way lots of stuff can be put away within a day or so of Christmas leaving only new toys to find homes for.

We only do token gifts for family so they will all be consumbable stuff like shower gel, bubble bath, sweet treats etc but less of it. So 1 lovely bottle of bubble bath rather than a gift set etc.

I want to cut down on the amount of people I buy for, but don't know how to approach it. Any suggestions? It grates on me that I buy things for people that I never see, but don't want to be mean as that goes against the point of Christmas!

Also Methenyouplus4, we have 4 too, so I'm totally with you on the STUFF!

We did this last year.
Did the something to read, need, wear, want in stockings and 1 big present under the tree. Also did just us on Christmas day no grandparents or extended family. Just us in our jammies watching telly and playing games. Hubby did a roast dinner it was bliss.

1st time Mama, a few years back, by DSiblings and I introduced a secret santa between ourselves (including spouses and partners, it's currently 11 people). So everyone does a "reduce, reuse, recycle", make it yourself, or spend a max of £5 on a stocking filler for everyone, and there is an annual draw that you get 1 name to buy a "good" present for (max of £50). Stockings are supposed to be fun things.

Among wider family, it was decreed a different year that the "DChildren" (now adults) would only buy for their DGodparents and vice versa, rather than everyone buying for everyone (6 adult grandchildren and 5 sets of DAunts/DUncles - the still actual children grandchildren were not included in that yet (U18s)).

Either of those might be useful ideas?

Yes. I've already warned the children that they won't be getting anything like as expensive as last year. We went big last Christmas due to having an absolutely shit year and wanting to make up for it. And we had a big holiday this year so we are doing one gift each up to £50 in value and a santa sack each, again up to £50. That's still £300 on just the children.

Yes, we are. We realised last year that the kids got so much that they were overwhelmed. We are going to buy them much less. Also, we aren't going home for Christmas this year (live overseas) so we're going to ask family to buy the kids books via the book depository website instead.

We cut down every year, stopped buying certain Xmas foods out of habit, that end up being wasted, thrown away, we never buy turkey as none of us like it.

We have whatever we fancy Xmas day and always have a lovely, relaxed day. Our DS’ are mid-late teens, so they mainly want cash!

No kids but we're going to stop presents with all friends as we only do token £10 gifts but they tend to be naff so why bother. We won't see my family so decided not to do presents and we will all go away for the weekend in early 2019 and plan to make memories instead of giving more stuff to each other.

That only leaves about 6 people to buy for and I can deal with that.

We have secret Santa groups between my NCT group and old school friends so we only buy one present for each other mum/friend and one present from each child to another.

It much restricts what we are buying but also receiving.

Yep, we're going from spending a over £2k to spending as close to £500 all in, including food, gifts, activities everything x

We cut it down a bit a few years ago, experiences as well as presents and food, we found during the primary school years that they did so much Christmas stuff at school (Christmas lunch, party, Nativity, fair) plus parties at Brownies, Cubs etc that they didn't want to do too much more at weekends. So generally just seeing Santa (now replaced by some sort of Christmas show as too old for Santa), going to the Christmas tree farm and Christingle service at church, spread over December.

We’ve also moved to Secret Santa amongst DH and his siblings. Been brilliant...one decent present each rather than several ‘oh goodness what can we buy x’ efforts!