How much do you spend on Xmas in total?

Mine will vary wildly depending on what people want/need. My wife as an example, this year she wanted 2 jumpers a new hair brush and some slippers, total cost about £80. Two years ago she needed a new car, so I bought her a 3 year old Seat Arona, £12k.
 
Foghorn Leghorn said:
We fixed that issue when we had kids.

No driving up and down the country visiting people over Christmas, dragging the kids around, if anyone wants to visit us that's fine, but we're going nowhere :D
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Yeah this is why we get lumbered with travel. Even when none of us have kids.

None of our (me, sisters) houses are big enough to host. But would be nice if parents came down even once.
 
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Foghorn Leghorn said:
How about going on holiday for a week or two over Christmas? Do that for a few years to break the cycle.
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My parter feels she needs to be at her dad's for support as he's lonely. So can't really get out of it. And if I'm all the way over there I may as well see my parents too.

I treat Christmas as "for everyone else" so I now just use it to see family et and write it off. Sometimes it's better than I expect sometimes worse. With the care for dog it's probably going to be worse this year. More stressful.

Managing to come back here on 29th this year so I actually have some time off.
But I will be driving every day from 24th to the 29th. It's quite tiring mentally by time I'm done.

I've never been keen on Christmas since the family issues. So I try not to think about it much until the week of it.

I also hate November and December as they are so grey, wet and cold.

Looking firsts forward to January though as its hopefully colder and brighter and spring is coming

But yes.. I'd love to go away for Xmas.. But paying for a dog sitter would also be extortionate over Xmas!
 
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413x said:
My parter feels she needs to be at her dad's for support as he's lonely. So can't really get out of it. And if I'm all the way over there I may as well see my parents too.

I treat Christmas as "for everyone else" so I now just use it to see family et and write it off. Sometimes it's better than I expect sometimes worse. With the care for dog it's probably going to be worse this year. More stressful.

Managing to come back here on 29th this year so I actually have some time off.
But I will be driving every day from 24th to the 29th. It's quite tiring mentally by time I'm done.

I've never been keen on Christmas since the family issues. So I try not to think about it much until the week of it.

I also hate November and December as they are so grey, wet and cold.

Looking firsts forward to January though as its hopefully colder and brighter and spring is coming

But yes.. I'd love to go away for Xmas.. But paying for a dog sitter would also be extortionate over Xmas!
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Looping this back to your saving question, why not go away in January for some winter sun? Dog sitters will be very quiet
 
I got the quote thing wrong! Yeah, was well aware of prices over COVID but at the time we already had 3 GSD’s and a springer. Now we have 1 GSD and a springer, and now these two cuties. These are £3k for the pair.
 
I've not added it all up, but I think I've spent about £800 on presents for the wife, kids and family. Bit scary when you think of it.

I'm sure my wife has spent a fair bit as well.

Damn, just done a recount. I've spent over a grand. And, tbh - the pile of pressies is very small. The only 'big' thing is a new bike for my daughter. My son's Steam deck and new clothes don't take up much room, nor do the tickets I got my wife. :o
 
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I'd say that I've spent somewhere around £700-800 for Christmas. Around £250-300 of that is on presents, £300ish on food and drink and then around £180 at my work's Christmas party (hotel room, meal and drinks).
 
413x said:
Travel too.

Basically what you wouldn't spend if it wasn't Christmas I don't include.

For me travel is probably about 150 of the 200-300 total!
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Well as a family we're all going to see family abroad so that's £1500+ alone for travel.

So yeah we're in the high spend category. That said we barely spend 10% of that on gifts.
 
Freefaller said:
Well as a family we're all going to see family abroad so that's £1500+ alone for travel.

So yeah we're in the high spend category. That said we barely spend 10% of that on gifts.
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We took the kids to see my Wife's family in Canada, for Thanksgiving & Xmas 2018. It was just after her 94 year old Nan's stroke and Dad's 70th birthday, so we decided to make the most of it.

Flights (Gatwick - Calgary, Vancouver - Gatwick)

Car Hire for 5 weeks (Chrysler Pacifica 7 seater),

Fuel: We drove Calgary - Edmonton - Red Deer - Sylvan Lake - Lake Louise - Banff - Salmon Arm - Kamloops - Langley, BC - Kelowna - Vancouver Island - Vancouver Airport (approx 2,300 miles in total!)

Motels (2 rooms at Red Deer, Salmon Arm & Kelowna)

Flight for Dad to get home (Kelowna - Edmonton)

Even with some savvy penny-pinching*, we spent close to £23k in total (Including food/drink/sundries)

*We bought 3x Isofix car seats from Amazon CA ($240CAD), rather than hiring - Dad brought them to Calgary so we could load them into the car as soon as we landed, then left them with Wife's aunt & uncle in Vancouver to donate to their church. This saved us approx £1800 compared to hiring!

I got Dad to take out a single 30 day rolling contract Unlimited Data SIM ($60) rather than use Three's roaming (minimum £5/day X2, for up to 12Gb a day for 35 days!). We worked out how much data the kids used in the car alone and Three would have billed us thousands.

I'm glad we did it - my Wife's Nan passed away the following February and her cousin's partner died in the April.
The kids got to experience proper (8ft+) snow, we watched the Aurora Borealis as we drove through the Rockies, Lake Louise in winter was absolutely stunning and spending time with Nana (Great Grandma) before she died was very special.

It was a huge expense, but worth every penny for the memories we made.
 
£200-250 at a guess. Few presents and mostly food&drink.

I do like Christmas Day with all the family but can’t wait until it’s all over, hate the build up that seems to start 2-3 months before now days.
 
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My wife spends piles on family, I don't. So for me:

Train to Slovakia 36 EUR
Present for the wife 100 - 200 EUR
I buy the drinks and snack at the mother in law's 150 EUR
 
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