If you’ve bought 15+ gifts for your child/ren where are you from?

[PinkyU]

I have a theory that different parts of the UK view giving Christmas gifts differently (based solely on anecdotes and experience, so very scientific).

I’m from the Scottish central belt and don’t know anyone, regardless of income (in fact more so for working class families), who gift less than 12/15+ presents to their children, nor do any of the NI parents I know.

Conversely my experience of English families (almost exclusively on here) is that there’s competitive minimal gifting regardless of financial situation.

Is it different traditions across the nations?

Prove or disprove my very scientific theory.

(Apologies to the Welsh, I have no experience but am happy to be informed)

Exactly. DS was told by another child once that he must have been naughty as they got more than him.

I've counted and I think dd is getting 14 (unless I've missed something). Her main is a trampoline (junior) and second semi main is a sylvanian set with a family of characters (second hand). Stocking is the rest and that has books, bath bomb, craft kit, chocolate, lol suprise ball, small game, cuddly toy etc.

I don't like to comment on things like this too much as I love the Christmas board and its focus on positivity and respect for other peoples' ways of doing things, but last year I distinctly remember several times a few arguments breaking out over this, and some of the wealthier parents bemoaning people who buy lots at Christmas did say they "wouldn't spoil their DC at Christmas because they don't want them to be spoiled" while at the same time saying that if the DCs want things throughout the year they just by them so they don't even need much by Christmas.

Well, isn't regularly and randomly buying things your DC wants for no reason more likely to spoil them than having a set point of the year where they can expect gifts?

Not aimed at anyone on the thread just a general musing. It almost seemed like a bit of a justification over something they weren't comfortable with, maybe competitive underbuying is quite a thing in certain social circles?

We do a nice stocking and maybe a gift or two. I couldn’t name anything else my kids want and I wouldn’t buy for the sake of it.

They get my DSIS, BIL, Grandparent on both sides. It already seems a lot.

@Dreamwhisper It just frustrates me when WC parents with more money than us assume those who buy less are MC. No, I just didn't have that kind of money when DS was younger and things are still (increasingly lately) tight as there's just me and I'm on a low wage.

DS did go to Cubs/Scouts, I could have saved those fees plus the money for camps to give him more at Christmas, but it was important to me that he didn't miss out on common childhood experiences either.

Sorry, that wasn't aimed at you in particular, just a common theme on these threads.

6 gifts each- and that includes chocs! Surrey.

I can’t believe how many presents so many children get. Ours always had a bulging stocking or pillow case of relatively little things from Father Christmas, but just one big present* from us. It wasn’t a question of money - we weren’t hard up. It just didn’t occur to me to provide a whole heap.
Dds were always very happy - and to be fair there were always presents from assorted family under the tree, too.

*One year (we were living in the Gulf) dd1 had really coveted an enormous floppy stuffed elephant in a local shop. I said no at the time - it was 150 rials, about £300 decades ago.
But a few days before Christmas I saw it reduced to 75.
Dd was so happy and we still have him - Gdcs love him, he makes a comfy ‘cushion’ to sprawl on while watching TV!

My kids get well over 20 things to unwrap but many of them have cost only a couple of pounds.

Same, and lots of presents are things like PJs, sleepers, snuggly hoodies etc which I'd no doubt end up buying throughout the year anyway.

There's always at least one of these threads every year, and at some point, it always ends in a bun fight.
I also absolutely detest the class stance, the 'WC parents spoil their children with so much plastic tat, I'm glad I'M not like that. I'm much better and raising non-spoilt children because they only get one gift each'.

No one is a better or worse parent than anyone else, whether they give 1 gift or 20. Fact. End of.

Here's all the reasons that affect how many gifts a child gets:

What they actually want
The budget
How many siblings they have
How many cousins they have, for hand-me-down toys
Other relatives, including GPs
How many toys/treats they get throughout the year
Whether clothes and practical items are considered gifts
Whether stocking presents are included in the total
Whether extras to go with another gift are considered separately
How much someone cares about Christmas
The way in which they celebrate it

For our part, we just have DS. We have no other relatives, no grandparents, no aunts and uncles, except for one lovely great-aunt who gets DS a gift. DS doesn't get treats throughout the year. He is encouraged to save if he gets pocket money, and probably only gets 4 comics a year as a special treat. We also go on holiday, and he has a couple of clubs he goes to. If he needs clothes, I just buy them when he needs them (mostly Vinted or Asda, because he'll cover them in mud and grow out of them, anyway), but no way does he get big toys throughout the year. We save them for Christmas and birthday. When people say they just buy a bike or iPad throughout the year, both I and MC DH are always amazed. To us, unless it was completely broken (then fair enough), it would be a big present you would have to wait for.

I come from a WC background, and DH from a MC background that was well-off enough for him to go to private school. We are an above-average earning family, but not wealthy, living in North Yorkshire. We buy DS around 10-15 gifts, not including stocking fillers, which are things like playmobil figures and choc santa. He loves everything, plays with everything, and at least 3-4 of those gifts are books.

I think if you feel snobby about those who buy more than you, or have a chip on the shoulder about those who buy less, you might want to remember the gifts are being bought for the season of goodwill...

From London. We stick to a stocking and about 4 presents each. They get a main, a medium, and a small gift, plus a book or a game. There is always plenty under the tree, as they also get things from grandparents, uncles and aunts, etc.

We also celebrate St Nicholas Day at the beginning of December. That’s when they get their festive PJs, a Christmas ornament, and a few other season-specific things that they can use the whole month.

I know people that just buy there dc 5 gifts and I know some that buy them 50 gifts. I think it depends on a number of things and probably has little to do with location.
When my dc were small I used to go all out and buy them loads, looking back it was totally crazy and a lot of it ended up in landfill, they probably only really appreciated about 5 of the things I had bought, many things never got played with or only got played with once. As they have got older I have focused on quality over quantity and I have now stopped buying anything that they are unlikely to want/need. They are now older teens and are getting 5 things each plus a stocking, some items have cost a bit but they are things they will use and won’t end up in the bin.

I think it also depends on how you do the presents. We always do stockings in bed then have a mix of everyone’s presents under the tree that are then handed out and opened one at a time. This takes quite a lot of time without them having 20 presents each from us (plus they do also get presents from other family members)

I tend to agree. It's not just the volume. I also hate it when people are thrilled to report that they've "spoilt" their children. They certainly have.

If the phone only has a crack and the laptop works, then no I would not buy them new ones - not both together, anyway. It not about what we can afford, but rather the values we have. We are (I am) pretty anti mass consumption and neither of those are good enough reasons to rush out and buy new.

Im also incredibly conscious of the difference in my children's lifestyle from how mine was. I was born on a council estate and we didn't have a pot to piss in. My dad worked for a brewery and one year my Christmas gift was a Guinness-themed article of clothing that was clearly a work freebie. Not because they were into sustainability but because they couldn't afford anything.

Fast forward 30 years and my DH are in the top 5% of earners in the US. My kids have everything they need and some - but not all - of what they want. They go to a state school in a very affluent city where - I kid you not - I saw a high school kid drive out of the parking lot in a Ferrari. My kids are surrounded by money.

I try really hard to make sure that they realize how lucky they are, and stay grounded. We are Christian and spend time volunteering and donating whenever we can. My daughter is going on a church trip overseas next year, which costs about three grand. Could we pay for it all? Sure. Are we going to? Nope. She is a very in-demand babysitter and she's going to be kicking in about $1,000 of her own money. I know she'll appreciate every bite of ice cream when she remembers how hard she worked to pay for it herself.

Ive gone off tangent (this is my hot button topic to be honest) but for the TL;DR crew, I'll sum it up succinctly: Just because you can afford to buy your kids everything they want doesn't mean you should.

I think a better way of summing it up is; people should do exactly as they please with their own children and other people shouldn’t try and tell others what to do.

You have clearly need used a slow lagging laptop they are practical unusable, mine is getting to that point and I end up swearing at it several times a day and it take 2-3 hours to boot up. No way would I suffer if I could afford new and as such if I had the money my kid wouldnt suffer it either.

I have never managed to crack a phone (no idea how people do as Im really rough with mine) but its pretty obvious that cracks through the screen effect the function... you wouldnt sit an watch a cracked tv all year would you.

Your kids will not know how 'lucky' they are when you deliberately deprive them of standard things they could have and that all their peers have but you just dont see the point in giving them, it actually has the opposit effect.

Ooof blimey there's teaching good ethics and the value of money and then there's just being miserly - fancy making a teenager use a laptop that doesn't work when you could easily afford to replace it!

I agree if it can't be fixed. DS has fixed mine a few times so it is still running at 10 years old. I replaced the charging port for a few quid as well. If it's unusable, can't be fixed and you have the money then get a new one.

We've gone from a laptop that's slow to one that's unusable...

DD is getting a new laptop, a printer, AirPods, an electric scooter, a few Lego sets, a camera and some games

That seems a crazy amount 😬, one of those items would be a main gift in my house and then they would get a few smaller things and a stocking. Dd is getting a Lego set as her main gift which cost £110, smaller gifts are around £10 each and one £20. I have probably spent around £200 including stocking.

A slow laptop basically is unusable, as I said I lose 2 hours of usage time to a reboot and they happen randomly.

Things shutdown mid application, the drive regularly jumps to 100% which crashes everything.

Do you use laptops? you clearly dont seem to know the carnage a slow laptop thats hit its maximum storage does (and thats not because its full of games its because constant up dates that they werent originally meant to handle).

Mine was slow a few years ago, though not that slow. DS wiped it and reinstalled windows.