Christmas Presents: Children’s Expectations: Have They Changed?

On the way home from work the other day I was listening to the radio, and they were talking about the expectations of children in relation to Christmas presents. Basically has it got out of control the presents children are receiving at Christmas? Is this putting too much pressure on parents? Is the expense of what kids want today in our heavily influenced technological world, quite simply getting too expensive for parents, and they are struggling to make their children happy, but surely it’s not all about expensive gifts?

Image The Telegraph

There was a man talking on the radio who had been playing the role of Santa for 54 years, and he wished they could go back in time, and make Christmas presents less expensive and more simple.

In fact he said if you give a child a cardboard box, they would happily play for hours on end with it. Yes I may agree that kids would be entertained with a cardboard box. I know from experience that my children have had hours of fun from a cardboard box, but they were under three years old. The problem is we live in a technology based society. It’s the world our kids will grow up in. So sadly it is kind of nonsense to think that children would be entertained by a cardboard box, when an iPad has limitless entertainment at their fingertips.

Advertising is all over the place either in your face or via subliminal advertising in TV and films, influencing our children, on the must have latest toy or tech gear.

So back to my original question.

Have children’s expectations changed?

Of course they have! It’s simple why. This is not the 1950’s where television was hardly common place, and technology was limited in the home. We have evolved and nowadays an iPad is equivalent to what I had which was a scalextric or something similar.

Our children are growing up with the internet right by their side. Actually I can’t think of anything wrong with that. It has revolutionised the way we live our lives. The Internet is an awesome invention that has no limits. As long as we teach our children internet safety, then all the devices that are available, I can see no reason why we are not buying them for our kids.

Children’s expectations at Christmas time with what they want for presents hasn’t changed one little bit. Since I was a child, growing up I wanted the latest toy or whatever was the latest fad for Christmas. Exactly the same as our children want the latest now.

We live in a world that has an unlimited amount of technology and toys, but that doesn’t mean our children expect more, but also doesn’t mean they don’t enjoy playing with a cardboard box from time to time.

For me it’s all relevant, in today’s world our children simply has more choice for our children, why would we want to go backwards to the old days, where there was less choice.

I personally don’t think our children expect more for Christmas. It’s just their choice of presents is far greater than what we had at Christmas, and that in itself in my opinion doesn’t mean they expect more. It’s the times we live in, which is called the 21st century, not the 1950’s. It would be nice to give them wrapped up empty cardboard boxes the amount of money that could be saved would be huge, but come Christmas morning I’m not sure my five year old twins would be that impressed, and most likely would only play with empty boxes for about two minutes if in fact they played with them at all, and yes of course they would be hugely disappointed.

Last weekend we visited Father Christmas with our five year old twins and before going in we asked them what they were going to ask for, for Christmas. R replied I am desperate for a blue camera, and a fingerling, but I really want a blue camera so I don’t mind if I can’t have a fingerling, I don’t consider this high expectation.

Do you think our children expect more for Christmas? I would love to hear your thoughts.