Decided to do Dec 1st box instead...

[Bonnieonthelam]

Last few years it’s become a bit overwhelming. The Christmas Eve box, then the next day stockings and Xmas presents. We buy lovely gifts but not OTT. My kids were just overwhelmed. The mess created was mind numbing.

Also, the Xmas PJ’s were so underused once Xmas was over.

This year is different, I’ve decided to make it into a dec 1st box will have their advents, new mugs, hot chocolate, some Xmas chocs, Christmas books (3-4 new ones) and Xmassy PJ’s.

Oh and my Christmas Eve/Dec 1st box is a generic gift box, with Christmas decorations - it doesn’t say Christmas Eve!

Does anyone else already do this?

This is exactly what we're doing this year albeit DS is only 15 months so it's clearly more for me than him! We have a toy nativity set, some Christmas books and an advent calendar for him and I think it's nice to do it all together so he gets to enjoy and explore things bit by bit.

I'm going a 1st Dec box this year. Christmas bedding (not new), advent calendars, Christmas pyjamas (new), Christmas jumpers (not new), nativity set (not new) and a selection of Christmas craft to do the next few weeks.

Like you, I want to get wear out of the Christmas pyjamas, and the kids can pick the crafts as we go along. A lot of the things are Christmas tradition anyway, it's just about presentation

We do this now. I started with a Christmas Eve box but we always have friends over on Christmas Eve and found we just didn’t have time to bother with the box.
Our elf brings the box and advent calendar now and we get so much more use and enjoyment out of it. I always put a craft kit, a baking kit, a new Christmas book and tickets to see Santa in it and my daughter loves it. They’re all things I was buying for during December anyway so doesn’t cost any extra and we get lots more use out of the Christmas pjs too.

We have always given any Christmas themed items during December so they can be used all through the Christmas activities, I’ve never seen the point in waiting until it’s almost over.

We don’t do it all at once though, we’ve always had a snowman that fits small gifts inside and every now and then during advent it will have a Christmas jumper, book, nice pens and stickers for the kids Christmas cards, a Christmas DVD to watch, a new Christmas decoration that sort of thing. It’s nice to have it spread out and have little surprises. It has been a tradition on our family since the 1960s long before Christmas Eve Boxes.

We're doing this too - we decorated the box this weekend to 'send' and it's going to come back with the advent calendar, the books (put away last year) etc in on 1st December

I’ve never seen the point of Christmas Eve boxes for exactly the reason that they are for only for 1 day.

Our elf will bring all that stuff over the course of advent, just to make each day a bit more interesting. TBH I enjoy the buildup to Christmas more than the day itself so this works for me!

Yes, I do a Christmas box on Dec 1st with advent calendar, winter pyjamas and festive books. Books are reused each year or swapped with SIL and pyjamas are secondhand or again SIL pass them back and forth depending on who they fit.

The elf is bringing ours this year.

We have a December 1st basket. It contains advent calendars, some foodie treats, a Christmas candle and then the Christmas jigsaws, books, mugs, etc that are reused every year.
We will get the tree at the weekend but it’s nice to have something festive to mark the start of December.

We do both, but our elf is bringing our 1st December boxes. That usually consists of: advent calendars, Christmas books, reward charts, slippers and dressing gowns.

The Christmas Eve boxes only consist of hot chocolate, nice toiletries, pjs and new electric toothbrushes this year. Everything to get them ready for bath/showers and settling down.

Ex Christmas Eve box person here too! Also changing to Dec 1st from this year!

I make my own advent calendar (live abroad and the usual chocolate calendars are really expensive!) so that will be out when they wake up tomorrow.
Then in the evening they will find a box with Xmas pjs, and a new Xmas book.

Really struggled to get anything Christmassy this year as in a strict lockdown so can’t get to any decent shops! Otherwise I’d have some colouring and craft bits in the box too, but hoping the elf can deliver those at a later date if our restrictions are lifted in time!

We don't do a Christmas box, but we do celebrate St Nicholas on Dec 6th, and he has been known to bring the odd Christmas jumper along (not this year though, as last year's still fit).
I think it's nice to do something special early in December.

We do new christmas books on Dec 1st, a new christmas wasjig (that is to be completed by Christmas Eve) and new pjs.