Beyond the Average: Creating a Magical Christmas for Your Big Family
According to statistics, the average household has 2.36 residents. But if your family is on the larger side, planning your Christmas dinner can be a military operation. To help you prepare for success this festive season, we’ve put together some top tips below.
How can bigger families make Christmas more enjoyable this year?
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Buy multiple trees
It might seem a little indulgent to purchase two trees this year. But it’s a practical solution to your Christmas woes.
Normally, the main Christmas tree sits pride of place in the living room. Lovingly adorned with artisan baubles and trinkets collected from various Christmas markets around the globe. This colour-coordinated masterpiece oozes glamour with twinkling golden lights providing a warm ambience as you sit down in the evening for a glass of mulled wine.
Which is great… until your darling child comes home from nursery brandishing a homemade Christmas decoration. While this is a wonderful expression of their creativity, they don’t always go with the overall ‘look’ you were hoping to achieve.
By having two trees, the second tree can be a homage to homemade crafts. With the nursery’s latest creations, chocolates in bright wrappers or pinecones collected from a crisp walk all featuring, it’s a tree where creativity can be explored.
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Create a budget
As Christmas creeps around, it can be a particularly stressful time – especially if you’re feeling the pinch due to the current cost of living crisis.
One way to minimise festive stress is to create a budget. Start by looking at how much you can realistically afford to spend without overstretching yourself. Then think about how many presents you need to buy to decide how much to spend on each person.
Although it’s tempting to go overboard, try to be strict with your budget!
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Utilise online shopping
Taking multiple children Christmas shopping can be a chaotic nightmare, so don’t feel bad about buying gifts online. But it’s not just the presents under the tree that can be purchased online! Doing your Christmas food order online can help prevent having to buy the last (often sad-looking!), turkey in the store.
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Organise activities
If you’re feeling festive, it’s a good idea to organise some activities together. If you can, baking, making Christmas decorations and wrapping presents can be a great way to spend some quality time together ahead of the big day.
If there are too many of you to bake and decorate a gingerbread house without an argument, it’s a good idea to split up into groups so each party can tackle a different aspect of the activity.
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Delegate tasks
Don’t feel like you have to do it all yourself! One of the best things about having a large family is that you can ask older children for help to ease some of the strain and give them a sense of independence.
Now all that’s left to do is crack out the mince pies and enjoy the festive period!
