Christmas day with the children #makingmemories
Written by Claire Burgess, Family Consultant
Tinsel, tree, turkey (and tantrums!), Christmas day is full of excitement for all of us but most of all for the children who will have been building up to it from mid-November (or even before)! I hope that this blog will give you some ideas as to how to prepare for and enjoy what is the most anticipated day of the year for our little people!
The children will already be excited – they have been exposed to preparations everywhere they go. Everyone is asking them “what do you think Father Christmas will bring you?” - the anticipation and then the arrival of the big day itself can be overwhelming!
Christmas Eve – don't be surprised if there is some concern amongst the little ones about Father Christmas coming to visit. After all, we spend a lot of time warning children about ‘stranger danger’ and then tell them that a man in a red suit is going to let themselves into the house, go into their room and leave them presents! You can help to allay these fears by making Christmas Eve nice and calm – perhaps watching a family film about Father Christmas to show them that there is nothing to be afraid of, and then trying as much as possible to stick to their bedtime routine (making sure you don’t forget to leave out the obligatory mince pie, carrot and the tipple of Father Christmas’s choice!). If your child is particularly worried then you could arrange an alternative place for the ‘present drop’ – for example, Father Christmas could leave the presents in the garage or in the porch and Mummy/Daddy could go and collect them in the morning to bring into the house.
Don’t be surprised if the children can’t get to sleep straight away – they will be excited, but try and stick to what you would do on an ordinary night to get them to sleep – routine to children is very important (I say that a lot in this blog!)– it helps to make them feel safe and secure and also helps to make sure that they are getting enough sleep and eating at the right times.
Christmas Day – It is important not to over complicate Christmas day. Children can very quickly become overwhelmed with so many differences to their normal day and this can then impact on their behaviour. Try to ‘be present’ and spend time with them. By preparing as much as you can in advance of the day you will hopefully just be able to enjoy the moment – there are only a few years when the children are young that the magic stays alive!
Breaking the day up into sections is probably the simplest way to look at the big day, starting where else but in the morning!
Your wake-up call from the children can come at any time in the early hours of the morning (for some reason Christmas completely messes with our natural body clocks!) – this could be 4am, 5am, 6am or perhaps 7am if you are very very lucky! Talk to your child/ren about your expectations in the days leading up to Christmas day and set boundaries on it - if Christmas day starts too early it can hugely impact on the rest of the day. Depending what time the children do wake up, perhaps say that they can open their stockings or 1 or 2 presents, but then they have to go back to bed until whatever you feel is a realistic time. Very often children will go back to sleep as the opening of a couple of presents will be enough.
Depending on when you open your presents, this might be the first time that the expectations of the children are tested. What I mean by this is that the gifts they asked for might not fit exactly with what they have been left by Father Christmas! You can however prepare for this scenario in advance by talking to the children about the presents they have asked for in their letters to Father Christmas. You can explain that while he will try, Father Christmas might not be able to get some of the things they’ve asked for – for example ‘a real-life transformer that will drop us to school!’ just won’t be possible! As an aside, this was just one of the things my friends told me when I asked them what their children had asked Father Christmas for over the years! They came up with a whole array of other weird and wonderful requests which included; a polar bear, a ‘moddle’ of the Great Fire of London, a fox, magic dust to make teddies come alive, for Sparky (granny’s cat) to come alive again :-(, a Reindeer ‘woopy’ cushion for Rudolph, “A special scarf that mummy wants” (aww!) and to swim with sharks (eek). Some children also mentioned things they didn’t want in their stockings – ‘cloths’ (clothes) was one of them and ice another (after having been read a story about ice being put into the stockings of ‘naughty’ children!).
Explaining why Father Christmas isn’t going to be able to bring these presents won’t be as hard to do as you might think – children are completely involved in the Father Christmas story and so if you explain, for example, that he can’t fit really big presents on the sleigh or that the elves have to make presents for all of the children in the world and so might not have time to make that particular gift, they will understand.
It is also good to talk to your child/ren about how it is as important to give a present as it is to receive one. To make this a reality, don't forget to involve the child/ren in buying presents for them to give to siblings and other family members on Christmas day.
Lunchtime
Going back to the point I made earlier about routines being important for children (I said I would mention it a few times!), this carries on being really important as the day goes on. At my house, breakfast and Christmas lunch are usually much later than we would usually eat and, as adults, we can cope with this change in routine relatively easily, however, children, with little tummies and scheduled naps, don’t cope as well. To counteract this, wherever possible try to keep the children on normal mealtimes as this will help with keeping them on schedule with eating (and sleep!). Perhaps think about having an early celebratory lunch with the children at their usual lunch time and then, if they do have a nap in the afternoon, it might be that their sleep coincides with your adult lunch, giving you time to eat before they wake up! Watch out for little fingers dipping into crisps and chocolates before lunch as well as this is certain to spoil any well planned for lunch! Maybe have some healthy alternative snacks (vegetable crudité and dips for example) for the children (and everyone!) to pick on. We also need to understand that all the excitement (and the fact that breakfast might have been later) might impact on the children’s appetite, so be realistic about what your child/ren will eat. They might not want to eat as much as usual and Christmas day isn’t really the best day to 'encourage' them to eat things that they don’t normally eat! The best thing to do is to keep food simple and as normal as possible – after all the rest of the day certainly isn’t!
Afternoon
After lunch, and when the children have woken up, it might be an idea for all of you to get some fresh air out of the house, maybe by having a short walk to burn off any of the children’s excess energy and giving the other guests some time to relax. When you come back, think about having some child friendly games ready and / or some presents which you have kept back to keep the day going for a bit longer before it’s time for bed – they will be ready for it by the time that comes!
Bed time
Back to routine again! Try to stick to your usual bath / bedtime routine so that the day ends as it normally does – this should relax your child/ren and help them to sleep better. You might just want them in bed so that you can have a nice evening, but taking the time and keeping it all calm means that bedtime will be much quicker and more effective. Children need us to help them regulate and to process the day – use bedtime as an opportunity to let them talk about the toys they have been given and what happened during the day. Be prepared that they might be upset that the day has come to an end - perhaps think about keeping some presents for the next few days so that they can open something between Christmas and new year. This will help with the 'come down' after Christmas day, but also means that the toys will be played with for much longer and appreciated. The main thing to remember is that rushing through bedtime or expecting the child/ren just to go to bed is going to end in disaster!
However corny it sounds, Christmas is about #makingmemories but don’t feel you need to keep up with what you see on social media - remember that people only post things that make them look like they are having a good time (it’s human nature!).
Enjoy having your own special Christmas surrounded by the friends and family that you love.
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