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It’s a well known fact that when you have children, Christmas becomes at least 300% more magical.
Yes, time off work to drink and eat until you feel physically repulsed at the state of yourself is pretty amazing, granted, but honestly – when you have children and they’re around 4-6 years old (as mine are) it’s the absolute undisputed peak of Christmas magic, as far as I can work out.
Everything is filled with wonder including their cute little faces, lit up like Christmas trees in delight, and it’s quite possibly even more exciting for me than them as my scientific analysis shows:
I have quite changed my mind from previous years, when I was significantly more Bah Humbug. This year, I’m getting right into Christmas, and here’s why:
1. You can wear matching family pyjamas
Me before kids: That is so tacky!
Me now, at 4pm straight after the school run:
Thanks, Shinesty* for the matching Christmas pyjamas! I’ve never been so happy to be tacky AF and my kids love them.
2. You can go to see Father Christmas
It’s pretty frowned upon, not to mention slightly embarrassing, to go and see Santa without kids in tow.
When you have kids it is basically mandatory, even if they sit there in silence looking terrified and like they want to cry.
3. Toys toys toys!
Toys are fun.
Being a grown up is boring.
Re-live your childhood by going shopping for toys and buy whatever you want, because let’s face it sometimes kids only want rubbish stuff.
“Playing with the toys Christmas morning! My son is getting a Scalextric and I literally can not wait to have a go.” Gem
4. You can watch The Nativity
The story is a crock, the narration impossible to hear over all the whinging baby siblings, the singing is terrible but LORDY I’m a sucker for a primary school nativity.
This year it was a 2-4-1 effort with both biggun and littleun involved in their epic production of ‘Born in a Barn’; probably not coming to the West End any time soon.
Anyway, they sang (they had been practising the words pretty much 24/7 at home and it was hard not to sing along. There were some right bangers and no mistake) they did the actions (she somewhat more enthusiastically than he), they fiddled with their costumes (she got allocated the exact same one as last year…). It was lovely. Proud mum and all that. Got something in my eye, honest.
5. You can give pictures as gifts
Buying presents for adults with their own disposable income because you feel you have to is wasteful and silly and a complete pain in the arse.
But who doesn’t want a picture of their grandchild? Merry Christmas, Grandma.
And they’re easy to wrap, too.
If you don’t have pictures, homemade gifts are also perfectly acceptable, no matter how crap they actually are.
“Save money on fancy gifts by getting the kids to do a drawing/a bit of crafty stuff/a hand print for the oldiewonks. Because all elderly relatives are legally bound to love anything handcrafted by the youngsters, and child labour laws don’t apply to kids making crafts ‘out of love’…” Jennifer
6. You have someone to blame for tacky decorations
It’s absolutely acceptable to have Christmas throw up on your house when you have kids, and you can tell people they decorated the tree even if they had no part in it.
7. Or the really, really badly decorated gingerbread house
Kids didn’t even touch it, tbh.
8. You get to go to school Christmas fairs
Where else can you spend two quid on the tombola and come home with enough booze to see you through to the new year?
Of course, you probably donated most of it and you may have spent days of your life trying to organise the fair itself and probably got stuck for four hours manning one stall because of a no-show, but there’s no denying that they are good fun (when they’re over).
9. And have chocolate for breakfast
It would, after all, be cruel to deny the baby an advent calendar, even thought they need help eating it and when the kids are older, they’ll insist that you join them.
10. You can start your own traditions
I would suggest perhaps not Elf on the sodding Shelf, but there are lots of things you can do to create your children’s Christmas memories for life.
“Being allowed to drink a glass of Christmas milk (Baileys because Santa told me he doesn’t like brandy) and eat a mince pie right before going to bed. I mean, I’d do this anyway, but on Christmas eve with kids it’s not only acceptable, it’s a necessity!” Roxy
11. It’s mandatory to spend at least one day watching back-to-back Christmas films
There’s nothing better than spending the day on the sofa, in your matching Christmas pyjamas, watching feel good kids’ Christmas movies. If you really want to bring out the nostalgia you could watch the old classics if you have a VHS player. If not you can convert your old tapes online for a small charge.
12. You always get the present you want
Father Christmas can’t leave you out!
Top tip for parents of young kids: Buy yourself something obnoxiously expensive that you want for Christmas, wrap it, and put it under the tree ‘from Santa’.
No one is going to dispute this as they would then ruin the magic of Christmas for everyone. You’re welcome.