nópe your not mean at all Lozz its crazy and i won;t go into debt for xmas

its like food shopping tins of sweets and pounds of chesse and far too much wine then we spend a fortune in jan at weight watchers trying to get rid of it

total madness

You telling me you dont drink far to much wine during the year?

Not mean at all, I think you are spot on.

just looked again at my xmas spends and i put much more into friends gifts than family! everything is proportional, i like to give people something at xmas but believe a well thought out small present is much more meaningful than an expensive but less personal one

This thread has been quite an eye opener for me. Maybe the reason we're pretty well off ourselves is because we're tight as a**holes!! Lol! We don't have our own kids, but 4 nephews and nieces only get £20 spent on each at Christmas, plus their Mum and Dad, that's another £40, and then the same on birthdays, and when you work that out over a year, it could pay for the house insurance!! Considering we never see them throughout the year now that they've all grown up, I think that's enough of a Christmas present I'd be really interested to hear how much you spend on your nieces and newphews who are 17 up and who you never see throughout the year????

My friends, however, get a lot more spent on them.

I wonder if kids today are getting so spoilt that they are growing up expecting it all, and not realising how hard it is to work for the amount of money they actually get as a present? The average present for each child relates to approx. a week's wage for each, and that just didn't happen in my younger days, even though my parents could well afford to spoil me rotten,they never did, I always got a lot less than my less well off mates. I wish I had different parents!!! I'm also glad I didn't have any, coz I'd be skint at Christmas handing all that money out to them.

Different World now isn't it

I think you have a point, kids today are spoilt take mine for instance they have nintendo ds each..psp's ps 1 and 2,,now a flameing wii..then i moan y cant you play nicely or go out side,,reason being...COMPUTOR GAMES deprives imagination..not only that as we all know sociaty has a big role to play as it is not safe out

Anyway must go on ebay...lmao xx

When I was young, many moons ago you would be content with felt tip pens, colouring books and board games. The electronic games where not available then, we had one tv, which we all watched together. Nowadays kids have tv's in their rooms, games consoles, pc's etc etc. The other thing is they have one each, which doesn't encourage sharing either.
If only parents where less stressed/tired they could join their kids in outdoor activities, cycling for one, swimming another, and many more.

We have one daughter, we have never spoilt her with gifts, although she has never been a demanding child either. In the past we have spent £100 on Xmas presents for her, and she has always been satisfied. We do not have a large family either where many gifts are given....

At the age of 19 - 20 in April, she has said she only wants a flat or a new car, and they would be out of the question so a digital camera will do

we spend about £100 on our son whos 5yrs old but i hunt around to find what he wants as there is alwas a diffrent price for them in diffrent palces i must say i think i have spnt £200this year but nver mind is worth it. but it looks like have spent more with the amount that threis. lol

As i said in my first post that we spend about £400 each theres four of them,and a grandson i like to but good well thought out gifts for friends and relatives but i really dont have that many relatives.so my friends mean more to me and any gift they get know it comes from the heart. my neices and nephews ive only 2 and my oh has 14 so what we do is give them £10 each at christmas and £20 each through out the year on birthdays, but its really the thought that counts and knowing someones thinking about you at christmas means more than anything so the thought is really what counts. xxtonixx

I'd be really interested to hear how much you spend on your nieces and newphews who are 17 up and who you never see throughout the year????





We don't buy for nieces and nephews at Christmas, they get £10 in their birthday cards until they start work, between me and my sisters/in-law we have 17 children, there is absolutely no way we could afford to buy for all of them, so decided many years ago that we wouldn't/couldn't do it.