What are you doing differently this year?

[PinkJam]

Present wise, I am cutting back this year. I reduced the amount I bought last year and it was still too much. And rather than similar types of toys, such as dolls for example, I have tried to stick to one brand. So DD has been mentioning Peppa, Sylvanian and LOL’s but I’m just going to stick with one to ensure it actually gets played with regularly.

I am determined to wrap presents well in advance this year. I have the same plan every year yet still always end up wrapping on Christmas Eve!

I am going to put the tree & decorations up late November this year. Don’t normally do it until mid December but then it feels like we don’t get to enjoy it for long enough.

What would you like to do differently?

Not much different than last year other than starting my shopping a bit earlier incase of a local lockdown and because I don’t fancy queuing outside shops in December. I cut back quite a bit last year, mainly just buy for kids and my parents (wine and chocolates or similar). Won’t be buying huge amounts for dc’s as the house is full of stuff we bought during lockdown and we have no more space.

Goodness only knows! Since last Christmas I've moved in with dp, covid restrictions are in place and I'm unemployed.

My kids are adults and want to go to their grandparents - rule of 6 means we can't all be there so I'm just going with the flow. My advice to those of you with small kids is to limit the dolls/plastic collectibles because they are abandoned too quick, choose toys which encourage open play and imagination

We are definitely cutting back on gifts and for the first time we've ordered some stuff from M&S . Not the the actual Christmas meal but other meals round it ( roast halibut, dauphinois potatoes,a large beef pie , fish platter etc) so we eat lovely stuff without me constantly cooking but we won't eat junk or be paying to eat out.
Christmas cake was made yesterday and we will start mince pies soon.
Last year I wrapped early and it was fantastic and very relaxing to know it was all done well in advance so will repeat that this year.

I think I might put up the tree and decorations a bit earlier than usual, during the second week of December. I’ve made mincemeat for mince pies, so will try to make them earlier than last year. I’ll also try and get adults DS and DIL to decide what they would like for Christmas nice and early so that I can get wrapping.

I’ll be planning meals and getting some batch cooking done for the freezer so that we don’t need to cook everything from scratch, some soups and stews. I also do stuffing and a vegetable dish for Christmas lunch and freeze them in advance.

Who knows what rules will be in place this year at Christmas, if we are on our own so be it, we’ve done it before. I’m more concerned about DS and DIL who live in London.

This will be our first Xmas in the uk for nearly 25 years so am looking forward to consuming lots of mince pies and cake. It was expensive and time consuming to source these delicious treats when we lived overseas,

Tree up earlier- getting festive to cheer us up.
Putting ourselves into isolation for a week and taking (private) Covid tests before we see grandparents will certainly be different...
Buying a lot of Lego to keep us entertained so spending more.
Not seeing friends for Christmas Eve or NYE and no Christingle either.

We were planning a nice quiet family Christmas anyway, so no massive changes. Main differences:

1. Not doing our usual pre-Christmas visits and present swaps with family elsewhere in the UK. There'll be a lot of packages going in the post instead.
2. Ordered all the food for delivery this year. Even without an unpleasant illness which I'd rather not catch again, Morrisons' food to order collection has been such a shambles every time we've used it that we said 'never again' and our local M&S has closed. Hurrah for Waitrose, Ocado and Dukeshill!
3. Every year I aim to have all the shopping and planning completed by the end of October - this year I think I'm actually going to manage it! I usually don't start wrapping or writing cards until later as it feels more festive that way, but I will probably bring this forward a bit too.

I'm going to strictly meal plan for the weeks before Christmas to make my money stretch further.

No panto this year due to covid. We have been going to the towns one each Christmas Eve for the past 15years. We'll be doing a movie at home instead.

No adult gifts for family. I'm slightly gutted I'll be missing out on the amazing presents my sister usually picks me, but my shopping has now been almost halved. So apart from children's gifts I'll only need to get wine and chocolates.

I won't be getting experience vouchers like I usually would for my DC. We still have some left from last year that have had to be rearranged several times already.

DD2 has requested a gravy fountain on the table for Christmas Dinner. I've said if she can find the chocolate fountain that can be her job to set up on the day.

Like a few other posters I'm hoping to wrap in advance this year. I say this every year but every year due to other things happening I end up staying up for hours on Christmas Eve wrapping everything and then getting a couple of hours sleep before having to get up and do all the Christmas day stuff myself, totally knackered!

So hopefully trying to change that this year!

I might put the tree up a bit later because I was putting it up around the beginning of December every year but I find then the younger ones think it's Christmas and start to get impatient. So I might leave it until closer to Christmas before putting the tree up this year.

I’ve done all my Christmas shopping already.. it’s all up in the loft waiting to be wrapped.

I’m probably going to send more cards this year... I know there’s a small risk of transmission but I e made some good friends through volunteering in our community so I’ll write a personal note in more and send them out.

We will probably put our tree up earlier (usually first week of December but will probably be late November).

We won’t go to the Christmas service on Christmas Eve - that’s the part I’m most sad about.

I’m hoping we can still go to my parents - there will just be 4 of us so fingers crossed.

I’m taking a full 2 weeks off work and actually having a break. I can’t remember the last time I had enough holiday left to do this.

I will not be hosting our usual by family do on Boxing Day. Although it is lots of work I will really miss it this year and I feel sad that our family tradition can't go ahead.

Hopefully we will be able to host it again in 2021!

Hopefully our first Christmas as parents & our first Christmas not travelling to see family.

Just hope the baby comes on time or slightly early, so we have a couple of weeks with him before Christmas Day!

We’ve ordered food to be collected from Sainsbury’s so trying to make it as easy as possible.