Christmas is coming soon. Therefore Christmas shopping is right around the corner. This will be Ace’s first Christmas, and our first Christmas with a kid. I have plenty of questions…
- What do I buy him?
- Will he like the presents?
- How much do I spend on him?
- etc, etc…
I’m just curious what everyone else spends on their children, so I’ve created DadThing’s first Poll.
I know it will probably be different for each family…their financial situation, how many children they have, and the age of their children. However, I think it would be very interesting to see what other families do…
{democracy:4}
I think even if you wanted to, there’s not too much you could get Ace that would excite him at this age. I remember Marcus’ first Xmas — he loved the wrapping paper aftermath more than any present that he got. But wait until he gets 3 and older – you will have just as much fun buying his presents as he will getting them. And your wife will say “um… are you getting this for him? or is it for you?” This Xmas, stick to the stuff Ace needs because after he’s three he’ll kill you if you get stuff he “needs” for Xmas.
We normally keep a budget of $100 per child. But when they were under 3, it was probably less. Most people in your family will be buying loads of toys and stuff for him, so I agree with Busy Dad. You’ll be unwrapping everything for him anyway until he’s 3 or so. For our guy’s first Christmas, we always got them cute stuff to decorate their room with, clothes and so on. Here’s another tip: Unless you plan on hanging all Christmas ornaments on the upper half of the tree, and not putting anything under the tree until Christmas morning-when he gets mobile you’ll want a “Christmas Fence” around your tree!
I have to agree with the others here. The first Christmas is for letting everyone else pick up the toys and you guys get the ‘must have’ stuff. With that said…I always got my kids a toy for their first Christmas, but just one and usually something like a puzzle or blocks. My kids love the puzzles.
Thanks for the advice everyone! I never thought about what everyone else will get him, and you are all right. I’m sure he will get showered with so many gifts from his Grandparents that we will have to build an addition onto the rear of the house. 🙂
I couldn’t really tell you how much we spend, but I know it’s not much. We just give our kids one to three gifts each year, and we don’t spend much because the grandparents buy them too much stuff to begin with. We cycle toys and give away a lot of them. 🙂
I totally have to agree with the others here. Each year, well for the past 2 years, we have been getting only 1 present for Chloe as she gets lots and lots of presents from our church friends, relatives and grandparents.
We only get the stuffs that she need like a new pair of sneakers or books. We let our ‘beloved’ friends spoil her with toys and such…
We are going into our second Christmas with our daughter and she still doesn’t really understand what’s going on.
I’d rather go easy on her gifts now and be able to get her more as she grows older.
Nice post – I really like the poll.
Thanks everyone for voting! I think this year we spent $100-$150 bucks. One or two toys and the rest was clothes. Glad to know I am in the norm. 🙂