I imagine every year, every parent asks themselves this question. Do we spoil our children at Christmas?
The honest answer for me and my children is probably yes!
My oldest three children who are now 21, 19 and 17 years old. When they were toddlers they were definitely spoilt in the amount of presents they had. It would always take them a couple of hours to open all their presents.
One particular year the two oldest girls had bikes for Christmas and my son who was 3 years old didn’t. So on Christmas Eve morning I felt very guilty that he wouldn’t have a bike delivered by Father Christmas so I went down to Argos and brought him a bob the builder bike with stabilisers.
After their mother and I divorced, I would do it a bit differently, but I had too because of the cost. However, I always felt they didn’t go without or at least I tried my best with limited funds to buy what they wanted. As they got older it was more about money and less about presents which is absolutely fine because that’s the nature of getting older.
Recently I have been thinking about whether my four year old twin girls are spoilt and I have come to the conclusion that they are not. Yes, come Christmas morning there will be a mountain of presents for them to open and I certainly don’t feel the need to justify it to anybody, you may ask why?
Well, it is really simple after I got divorced I had a serious amount of debt and that is all but cleared now. So what I earn now, stays in my pocket.
Both my wife and I earn good money which we work hard for, and we both have blogs that have received a reasonable amount of success which includes reviews of toys that we work for by doing quality reviews, and also between us we received a lot of vouchers for work on our blogs. Of course it would be nice to get this for nothing, but alas it’s not.
All of this enables us to spoil our four year old twins at Christmas and I for one don’t see that as a problem because you are only four years old once, and what is more special than seeing your four year old twins on Christmas morning with their little faces lit up because they know that Father Christmas has left all these fantastic presents for them? Memories to treasure, because it won’t be long before Father Christmas is a distant memory.
My older children have a fixed amount of money and it’s up to them if they want cash or me to buy and wrap presents for them and I think that’s fair because of course they have presents from their mother which equates to the equivalent to what their twin sisters would receive at Christmas.
I am more than aware that there are many children in the world that won’t even receive one present at Christmas and yes my heart goes out to them, but it won’t alter the fact that I get to spoil all my children a little bit because it’s what I work for and I don’t feel guilty about that.
Do you spoil your children at Christmas? Would love to hear your comments.
6 Comments
relentlesslypurple
December 7, 2016 at 7:34 am
I love this! I love spoiling my girls at christmas if I can. We had it tough starting out in a flat with just the Mr’s bed & pc and a few clothes each so everything we own we’ve worked for one way or another. We’ve gone a bit crazy decorating and making sure this christmas is as magical as we can with our limited funds, I don’t see it as spoiling them. I see it as giving them the chance to enjoy the christmas magic while they are the perfect age. Your only a kid once! Although I am still totally jealous of the twins cars 😉
Rach
December 7, 2016 at 8:06 am
Brill post as always Nige. I’m terrible for spoiling my son but I am going to try and reign it in this year. His birthday was only on Saturday and we still haven’t got round to looking at all of his new presents from then yet! #bestandworst
Janine
December 7, 2016 at 12:07 pm
I wouldn’t say I spoil my kids at Christmas but I do like to make sure that they have a decent amount of presents but that’s because they really don’t get much through out the year. I’mean in a large parenting group on Facebook and the question “how much are you spending on your kids this christmas” comes up a lot every year but I don’t really know why. Surely you just spend what you can afford and this will be different for different families depending on varying circumstances. I save hard all year to be able to afford christmas, some people have nothing to save and some people can do their whole christmas shopping with one months wage. There’s no right or wrong.
#bestandworst
jeremy@thirstydaddy
December 7, 2016 at 5:07 pm
As hard as I try not to spoil them, and try to teach them appreciation, I’m sure at the end of the day I’m spoiling them. Like you, I worked hard to get to a point in my life when I’m able to do this, both for them and myself and my wife. I’ll try and participate in as many toy drives and such as possible to try and give back a bit, but I don’t feel guilty either
Kelly Allen
December 7, 2016 at 6:29 pm
It’s really hard, isn’t it?! I totally go overboard and I think it’s linked to having a very small family… so I know what we get them is important because we don’t have laods of relatives popping over tonnes of gifts… I also think it’s great to give them, then we’re really teaching them about giving and kindness at Christmas time, right?! Enjoy Christmas whislt they still believe… 🙂
Helen Gandy
December 7, 2016 at 9:48 pm
Yes I do, I freely admit it, I spoil them not just at Christmas but throughout the year I can’t help myself! I love to see how happy they are on Christmas morning and like you we work hard for our money and if I want to spend it on them I will, it makes me happy too. I don’t believe that they are spoiled but fortunate that we are in a position to be able to treat them. Great post Nige! #bestandworst