How much has Christmas cost?

[Anotherloverholeinyohead]

And do you think it's worth it/good value for money?

My list

Presents £600 inc family and children
Food shop £150
Out for Christmas Day lunch £300

I don't think it's too bad and good value for money. My adult ish children will be very pleased with their gifts and I'm happy with the cost of food. First ever Christmas Day eating out so I won't know yet if we'll enjoy it or not - I certainly hope so because I'm loving not having to prep a Christmas dinner!

We've spent £3000 on our 3 adult children. Another £1,500 on the 6 grandchildren. Getting towards £750 on food (we buy turkey, ham and booze for adult children) just in the past couple of days.

We haven't bought gifts for each other (H and I) but we shop the sales.

Don't want to think about the final total. Plus we have two birthdays within the 10 days which I've not thought about yet.

Definitely more than £1,000. Maybe £1,500? Won't know the final amount until we're done.

We always host as well. This year we have asked people to bring certain things, it doesn't save that much money, but does relieve some of the admin/prep pressure.

£20 on additional lights
£30 on massive antler for the dog 🤭
£45 on gifts (we do secret Santa for adults and just 1 nephew to buy for)
£45ish on food for a pre-Christmas gathering last week for a few friends (we already had a bunch of booze left from other get together so didn’t need to spend on that)

will be doing a food shop today so that is yet to be TBC but I think it should be fairly cheap compared to other threads I’ve seen as it’s just two of us and vegetarian so just veg required!

I think this is going to be cheapest Christmas ever!

Same
It's another world where people are spending 3k or more

Gifts £500. We tend to spend £100 each on the kids then do token gifts with other family - most of us are fairly well off so don't really need a lot of tat. Then to buy the DH something for his hobby but to be honest we would be buying it anyway so it just branded as a Christmas present.

Tree/decorations £100. Accompanied by loads from the attic with come out year after year.

Extra Christmas Food £100. We have a roast most weeks so it is the extra cost of the mince pies, brandy butter etc.

Overall we keep Christmas fairly low key. Minimising the stress which certainly adds to the enjoyability for me.

Estimating I'd say about a
1k on presents that's 2 kids, partner, family, friends and friends kids.
Food and alcohol about £350
Christmas events £300
Decorations £150

I have a spreadsheet so here goes :

£1,175 on gifts - this is for around 40 people including 4 parents, 2 adult children, 2 grandchildren, siblings and friends and also includes small gifts for our work teams (17 people)

£170 for 3 work meals

£200 for meal with 2 adult children and 2 grandchildren (pizza place)

£135 for 2 meals with friends

£150 for hosting wreath making night

£80 for Christmas nails and hair cut

£40 for party night at salon

£30 for treats for the dog

£150 for advent calendars x 4

£545 for trip to German market, theatre, meals out for D&I

£230 for advent / Black Friday offers at salon for the new year

£200 food shop for Boxing Day

Total is £3,330

However, I’m guessing it includes things that others may not count as being included in a Christmas budget.

We divide the cost and split it up each month so never go into debt for this.

We have a budget of £4500
That has to cover
4 children birthday and Christmas presents.
Family gifts
Christmas Day lunch out
Panto
Cinema trip
Santa trip
Hosting Boxing Day

About £1500 or so I'd say, including food, presents and all the various Christmas activities we've done such as panto trips.

Just worked out that including days out (we took ds indoor sky diving and will go to the Snowdome for a day skiing at some point) we look to be about £1100. Bit shocked it’s so much as that’s a holiday budget for us but also we haven’t skimped on some nice presents and fun.
That covers presents for everyone (11 people total including ds and dsd all coming to about £700)

But why? Surely just stop buying for adults? Most of those presents must get wasted surely? 45 people buying 45 gifts??????

Presents for everyone, food, booze come to £1560 ish

Not a great amount in the grand scheme of things here because we don't host for others and don't buy presents for each other or anyone else's else we have a roast dinner Christmas day

So booze is £100 that's going to last us ages including through new year

And a couple of Christmas chocolates/ treats and some biscuits and things for the roast £80
That's pretty much our spend every year it's my dp birthday in January and taking him on holiday so that's a expense on its own 🎄

Wow, it's good to see it's not just me who overspends. £120 panto tickets, £40 to see santa, £800 for kids presents, £100 for others, £200 for husband, £150 food (if not more -- I am not keeping track of food spend). So roughly £1250 total. Ridiculous. Next year I am going to make an effort to reign this in more.

About £850 gift, food shop is around £300 including turkey. Around £50 on Xmas activity

£500 max on all gifts (two kids , mum , husband, secret Santa, nephew, friend)

£200 on both Christmas staff dos

£60 crackers (make my own, they maybe should go on the gift list )

£30 on drinks for the day - going to my mums , so that’s our contribution.

£50 on petrol.

£50 Christmas tree

£100 Christmas market husband and daughter (would have been double but I was to poorly to go )

£100 for extra stuff that I hadn’t planned for Boxing Day and day after ( probably a fast food place as away from home)

£1100 all in . It’s a lot to say we hadn’t done much activity wise.

£300 approx on presents for 5 children and 5 adult family members
£250 ish on dc presents
£50 on DH
£300 on food
£50 on Christmas stuff to do with dc
£100 on decorations (DH is 100% responsible for this).

So just over £1k which is ridiculous now I've added it up

Presents: 1300
Food shop: £100

Think that's it.

I'm scared 😱 to add it up, I must be at least £1500 in gifts, inc DSs Xbox.
Between DH, 2 kids, parents, 6 neices and nephews. Might be birthday stuff in that figure.

Probably about £300 on food and drink dinner for 9 and a couple of other hosting events.

Panto £120.
I was £20 on stamps that I grudge.

Theatre x 2 160
Presents 1000
Food 250
Restaurants 200 ish
it’s never value for money ever but I enjoy it having the grown children together under the same Roof is a rarity these days.

It’s got to be around a thousand pounds

I got Divorced this year. ExH family dropped us & I've 1 relative 300m away. I've had drinks for 2 friends £50. 'Extra' Xmassy Food: £150. Gifts for Ds (20) & Dd (17): £500 each. He has been in heart failure, & she has been an utter star so she has the replacement ASD headphones she needs & a new phone. He has a 'new' desktop tower (2nd hand but an unusual one I really hope he likes). I’ve gone into a bit of debt for their gifts which I don't normally but It is 'good value' to me as I want them to have wonderful surprises this year of all years.

I was thinking along these lines but then when you really think about it there's so many extra costs. Meals, nights out, trips etc. I've paid
£1,000 on gifts (£500 on dd (14) then rest on family and friends, also includes money to dd to buy presents her friends)
£500 weekend away to Christmas markets
£300 food/alcohol hosting for 6 Xmas day
£100 theatre tickets & Xmas event
£500 for a number of meals/drinks with various family & friends
£40 Xmas nails for me & dd

I'm sure there's more but I don't want to think about it 🙈

About £1000. Which is crackers really, excusing the pun.

I genuinely have no idea and don't plan on trawling through multiple bank statements to figure it out but I'm comfortable we'll have enough money left to survive till the end of Jan and that's what matters!