What is your Christmas budget?

[KittyPup]

I’m considering trying to cut back a bit this year as DH thinks I go a bit mad at Christmas. I’m not sure I agree so I’m just gauging what others do.

I put away £250pm all year and everything Christmas related comes out of that 3k. This includes gifts for our 2dc (approx £400 each), gifts for each other and dc in the family, Christmas food shop, Father Christmas trip, Christmas jumpers, any new decorations / wreath making workshop, fresh tree etc. Basically anything Christmas related in December and then the day itself and a few days in between.

Can I ask what your Christmas budget is? Or do you just not track as you’d rather not know?

@Bedroomdilemmas113 for what it's worth, I think your Christmas sounds absolutely amazing and if I could, I would do just the same. You've said you can afford it comfortably, and love Christmas, I see no reason why you should change your ways or be made to feel you go overboard just because others don't minimally and don't understand your choices!

This all sounds amazing! That's a hell of a lot of money, but if you can actually afford that then why the hell not. We all have different budgets and incomes and if I could afford to do all of your stuff I'd do it!

Last year I spent about £50 on ds, most of what we got for him was free through my job. This year will be the same. I'm very fortunate in that if he needs gaming equipment and toys I can get them for free.

Me and DH spend about £250 on each other and then we spend 50-100 on wider family members.

Food wise we spend very little on Christmas day food as it's just the 3 of us.

Boxing day we budget around 400-500 (which includes booze) as we host.

Me too! It's sounds amazing @Bedroomdilemmas113

£300.00- Food & Drink
£100.00- Decorations
Children's gifts- £400 (£200 each)
£300.00- Experiences (light shows, visits to Santa, etc.)
£200.00- Gifts for family and friends
Gifts between my husband and I: £200 (£100 each)
Total: £1500

Our xmas is quite expensive but we are a big family, 5 of us, then 8 nieces/nephews, 4 siblings plus partners, both sets of parents and a couple of close friends.

We host 1 family meal which has 22 guests!
I usually buy 1 new xmas decoration per year, and we have 1 family day out (was cheap this year as youngest is 9 so was more of a token santa visit but have spent several hundreds of pounds in the past).
Cutting back this year also, due to kids not needing a thing. Husband has picked a few expensive things and ive picked a few more expensive things than I normally would.
I would guess around 4k in total for everything.

Can I ask were you just not able to afford any extras or were you shrewd? Are you sad now at not having special memories of them with Santa? Do they ever mention this to you? I'm interested as most people seem to go all out nowadays.

This is amazing! If you have room for 5 trees downstairs, you must live in a massive house. I’m envisioning butlers walking around with trays of Ferrero Rocher 😆 Far beyond my reach but wish my relative took me on a winter holiday!

Honestly I don’t. It is a large but on the normal side of large house. I just put a fat gorgeous tree in the corner of all of the rooms!

Christmas doesn’t cost much at mine, a few hundred. But I always have a potential budget of £15 for a terrys dark chocolate lemon.

Can I have one?

Can I cocoa.

Presents Inc stocking for DD ~ £300
Presents between me & DH ~ £900
Presents for wider family, DM, DD, DS, MIL, FIL, BIL, SIL & nephew ~ £550
Christmas eve box ~ £100
Days out ~ £200
Decorations ~ maybe £100
Christmas food ~ £100

So about £2,250 for this year.

We've spent much less in previous years but can afford more this year and I love Christmas.

Everything in, Inc for grandchildren approx £1000. I've 4 youngsters, 2 DiL, 1 SonILaw, 5 grandchildren, and a few others to buy for

I don't really add it up, mostly because I don't dare. There's five kids, they all have partners - three of them (plus partners) come to mine on the day so I decorate and cook a huge dinner; then there's presents for the two and partners who aren't here. Two are pregnant this year, so another two next year to buy for... I overspend, but I don't go into debt, so technically I can afford it. But I am cutting back this year because I retire soon.

I'm saying that. Let's see if it happens... (I love Christmas and it's the only time in the year that I really push the boat out, so it's not so bad).

£500 .
I save all year. I only buy gifts for 3 people.
this covers food, gifts , cards, postage, everything.
used to be more when dc younger and family members hadn’t died

I agree - I do think it depends on the age of your children to some extent. Mine are 4 and 9 years old. So no iPhones etc or expensive tech yet. Bikes have normally been bought for birthdays when new and within £125 price range or summer if second hand and normally £45 as not a gift. When it does come to phones etc it will be that they get mine or dh old one as we are ready to upgrade. If they want different they will be expected to get there own. We upgrade every two years to the latest iPhone so don’t see an issue there. They both have iPads for school work which were old ones within the family so I think they’ll be fine with this set up. Plan to get them a laptop for school when start secondary as school requires this. Two years ago eldest asked for a Nintendo switch. We bought her one but she had very few other presents other than the games and accessories for it. We also said that all the family were to be able to play on it but that she could take it to sleepovers and gp’s. Eldest has tv in room (not as a present just as part of growing up and needing some time to herself at times) but it is our old bedroom one. We buy new for lounge, lounge goes to our bedroom then she got what was ours. In a few years we’ll buy another new tv for lounge and then son will get our bedroom tv, and so on.

Christmas and other occasions can be as cheap or as expensive as you make them. As long as everyone is happy it doesn’t really matter how anyone does their Christmas. Just don’t feel you have to splurge when you can’t afford to. It’s not all about expensive/ many gifts. Do what’s right for you.

Have not worked one out yet. Use this as a guide.

Something they want.
Something they need.
Something to wear.
Something to read.

Zilch!!!! I no longer celebrate Christmas, made the decision last year. Previous to that it varied over the years but most recent Christmas's that I did celebrate, probably between £800-£1000.

I'd say shrewd, and also mindful of starting out as you mean to continue. I didnt want to get the DCs used to traditions that might not turn out to be sustainable, and I also wanted to emphasise that Christmas is a religious holiday. We did Santa and had a big celebration on Christmas Eve too (still do both), with the Christmas Eve celebration after early evening Mass.

We live in a part of the world where Christmas isn't really a thing that necessarily involves the items some might consider essential - there are no pantos, few commercialized Christmas lights experiences (there are free zoo lights, and entire neighborhoods completely lit up and decorated to the nines that you can stroll around). I'd say people are more 'each to his own' here when it comes to celebration of Christmas.

We went downtown a few times to see some famously elaborate and fanciful department store window decorations, and to the Kristkindlemarket where we bought a few scandi style straw tree decorations over the years, and listened to a few oompah bands giving it their all. Weather here can be atrocious in late December so we didn't venture out every year.

My DCs were involved in school and parish Christmas activities, in particular an annual school Christmas concert, and their (RC) school also did an annual (free) Christmas craft event which the DCs enjoyed - I still have most of the decorations they made there and use them on the tree and around my home. The DCs love seeing 'creepy Santa' every year on the sideboard, and there are several other bits and bobs they made that make us all smile.

I always baked for a Christmas bake sale that benefited a local charity, and the DCs and I had a lot of fun planning what to make and then baking and transporting the goodies to the sale venue - many happy memories of plates of 'a dozen' cookies that ended up with eleven by the time we got there, and a kitchen that looked like a home where the buffalo roam, and the deer and the antelope play.

There's also the annual nailbiter of leaving the search for The Tree to the absolute last minute, and telling each other we'd definitely go looking before the 22nd December next year.

Presents for adults apart from your other half seems daft. I only buy for a host and then it would be a food item or drinks.
As for money buying special memories, what tosh! I loved my Christmases as a child. Simple things and being with family. Can’t get better.

Sounds like a lovely traditional Christmas with lots to do. Maybe we should all go back to basics 🥰

I do around £20-£50 per extended family member for presents (and sometimes just token gifts like some beer, wine or chocolates/ pannetone and books for kids) so my presents for extended family total around £300. We spend around £200 on the Christmas food shop, probably a bit more in food extras around the holidays. Presents for me/DH are around £50-75 and we spend around £150-
200 on DD (13) all in. Tree (real) and bits of any extra decorations £100. So about £1000 for all the gifts/basics.

We usually go out for a meal or so over the Christmas holiday, a winter lights trip, a Christmas concert, and sometimes a theatre trip/night away depending on cash flow, so that adds an additional £400-700.

I feel like we already do and spend too much so am in awe of how people are spending thousands and thousands! Isn’t it just all overkill?

@pushthebuttonnn I think because for an awful lot of people (as can be seen on this thread) it has strayed so far from tradition and lots of people are unhappy with "basics" that there are many people - like our family - that want to escape all the enforced celebrations.

I find the whole thing quite nauseating. It's my least favourite time of the year.

My best memories of Christmas were when we didn’t have much money but mum went all out in her own way. We had the same decs -and tree FOREVER.

Memories like visiting a grandparent and buying them a present and wrapping it up: a shampoo bottle or bubble bath.

Having a cup of tea in parents bed first thing in the morning of Christmas day.

The extra snacks and food we had: crisps, yule log etc

Having a rare chippy tea or later a rare mcdonald’s on xmas eve.

Family visiting over new year and spending time with cousins

Going to the ‘sales’ with a tiny bit of money.

We have lost the simpleness of life in many cases, we HAVE to go on the Santa train, to a show, Expensive Christmas light shows, Christmas markets, children with designer clothes, skin care and make up. Lapland, huge present piles for social media, Professonal decoraters. We wouldn’t have even known how others decorated.

Consumerism is constant and we are bombarded with it for the ‘perfect’ Christmas.

Our budget is £600

£120 each for kids (includes jumpers, xmas eve box, presents, stocking) + other gifts for people + food + panto + family photo etc...

We just see the free Santa in the shopping center, we never went to a paid one that was better so don't see the point.