A Dickens of a Christmas dilemma

Written by lynnconnolly on Thursday 11 December 2008

Since my kids were little, Christmas has been a huge event with no expense spared. With having three of them, in past years our Christmas tree has been almost lifted off the ground by the amount of presents under and around it on Christmas morning, however, this year, out of necessity, we’ve come over all Scrooge-like and decided between us to spend no more than £50 on each other.

This makes good sense; the kids are no longer kids, they’re all adults and in one way and another, we’re all feeling the effects of my not being able to work full-time anymore and the credit crunch malarkey, but nonetheless, I’m thinking it’s going to be very odd and possibly super depressing to get up on Christmas morning and need a microscope to hunt out the pressies under the tree.

I used to get all the kids gathered around and hand them each a present and then watch as they opened it before giving them each another pressie. This would take about an hour or so on the big day, but again, that’s not going to happen this year. For example, for my youngest, Kev, I’ve bought an MP4 player thingy so he has just one gift from me. His sister and brother will buy him a gift each too, but even still, it’s not going to take long to hand that out is it?

For the other two, they wanted DVDs and t-shirts so given that Kev only has one present from me but the other two have maybe 5 individual things, I’m going to have to wrap the DVDs all in one bundle for Sarah and David because otherwise, Kev will just be sort of sitting there… oh god. The trouble is, I just can’t get the fact that they aren’t little anymore into my head…

I thought maybe as an alternative to having the presents under the tree – and therefore avoiding comparisons with previous years – I might get stockings for everyone and put the pressies in them. But then there won’t be any gifts under the tree at all… unless I put the stockings under the tree.

I cannot stand change; it does not sit well with me and I’m also a sucker for tradition. For instance, I don’t like sherry, it’s horrible, but because my mum used to drink sherry on Christmas morning and when I was older, she’d pour me one too, I have to have a sherry on Christmas day. I’m not a huge fan of sprouts and nobody else in the house eats them but it’s tradition so I’ll make sprouts with dinner.

One year, I decided to try and break with tradition, even in just a small way to sort of wean myself off it, so instead of buying a whole turkey that was the size of a Russian shot-putter, I bought a modest turkey crown. Not the biggest of Christmas rebellions one wouldn’t have thought, but it damn near ruined the day for me.

I’ve yet to face the abject horror that will be my kids having Christmas elsewhere but it’s sure to happen one day. They’re bound to get married or something and I simply don’t know what I’ll do. One day, it’s sure to be just me and Mike, and Mike hates Christmas. I am a Christmas fanatic so when the time comes that it’s just me and him, well, I shudder at the thought. He spends most of Christmas day on eBay whereas I have carols on CD all day, always wear something festive and spend the majority of the day – after the obligatory sherry – drinking snowballs because again, it’s tradition.

So, now you have an idea of how fanatical I am about traditional Christmases, how can I get around the whole ‘how best to present a handful of pressies’ issue without it feeling like Christmas day round at Scrooge and Marley’s? All suggestions gratefully received!