Slow down a little and save yourself some stress, there will be enough of that on the day itself!
As a parent myself I know there is a tendency to over complicate things when buying Christmas Gifts for the Children. Here are a few mistakes We've been guilty of in the past. See if you can avoid them when you go Christmas Gift shopping this year.
Buying Christmas gifts that are too old for your child
I think this stems from the fact that EVERY parent holds a deep seated belief that their child is "advanced" for his or her age.
So what to we do? to re-enforce this idea we buy presents that are a year or two too old for them. A bike that's too big, a game that needs reading ability before they've started school?, an electronics set before they know how to change channels on the TV
There are two things wrong with this philosophy :-
- The don't play with them because they don't understand them or are not physically capable.
- As the children get older you run out of Christmas Gifts to buy that are suitable for their age because you've already bought them years before.
So we are wasting our money and backing ourselves into a corner!
How many times have you seen young children on tv video shows playing with empty boxes on Christmas morning?
Buying Christmas Gifts to keep up with our friends
Again this is really our own fault. As parents, we are all too competitive, we see what our friends are buying for their children and then we get "Christmas gift envy" so we rush out and buy the same Christmas gifts.
Panicking late on that you haven't bought enough Christmas Gifts
The nearer it comes to Christmas, the more we start to panic that there won't be enough Christmas Gifts to open on Christmas morning.
So we rush out and race round the shops like you're on supermarket sweep, shoveling anything and everything you can find into the trolley.
This becomes more of a problem as children get older.
When children are young they are into everything and anything and so it is easy to buy lots of little Christmas Gifts that will amuse and entertain them.
Older children's interests settle down to one or two things and their tastes become more expensive (mobile phones, games consoles, personal computers etc).
And so naturally without spending ever more and more each year, there is less to open.
Hopefully this short article will help you avoid some common mistakes when buying Christmas Gifts for Children.
