Christmas traditions are great but don’t let them bankrupt you

Whilst traditions at Christmas can help build family culture, Joanne Gilchrist suggests ways to stop the cost spiraling out of control

I love the Christmas movie - Christmas with the Kranks (based on the John Grisham book Skipping Christmas) where Mr Krank works out that with the amount his family spends at Christmas, they could instead cancel Christmas and go on a Caribbean Cruise. You can imagine the hilarity that ensues.

last Christmas, we spent double the amount we did 5 years ago

As someone who has always lived on a very tight budget, I’ve always been a bit smug about not wasting so much money on Christmas. That was until last year, when I decided to work out how much I did spend on Christmas and it floored me. 

What really floored me was that last Christmas, we spent double the amount we did 5 years ago. 

What’s happened in these 5 years? Has my family doubled in size? No. But our ’Christmas traditions’ have. 

Adding up the traditions

There are the traditions I grew up with -  the Christmas Eve pyjamas (which used to be unique to my family so everyone else has obviously copied us) and the giant pile of presents on the sofa on Christmas morning.