T-15 Weeks
Setting and managing Christmas expectations
Hello, and welcome to week two of the MFY Christmas Countdown! This week is all about potentially the trickiest element of Christmas - other people.
Last week, we talked about how to set your Christmas budget for this year, and this week we discuss how to manage everyone else’s expectations accordingly - not an easy task, but a necessary one.
It’s not worth sacrificing your wellbeing just to meet the arbitrary expectations of other people. They’ll get over it faster than your bank balance will.
Get on the same page as your partner
Before you start to worry about everyone else, it’s really important to get your your partner, if you have one, on board with your Christmas plans.
Set a budget together (see last week’s post for guidance and a downloadable template), and be clear about who is responsible for communicating what to whom. How much work all this is very much depends on the size and formulation of your family and/or friendship group (and how mercurial their characters are), but too often the mental load of Christmas expectations falls onto one person. If you have a partner who you share Christmas with, the load should be shared, too.
Setting expectations early is key
So many of our worries about Christmas come from external pressures and expectations - real or imagined.
September is a great time to take stock of your resources, especially time and money, and start conversations with your children, friends and family about gifts, outings, plans to travel or host and anything else that’s up for debate. It’s also plenty of notice if you need to change pre-existing plans to accommodate a tighter budget.
Be prepared to be met with a bit of resistance and be firm but kind in the face of it. People will usually get used to new ways of doing things if you stand your ground.
Crowdsource budgets and ideas
Sometimes, in order to get people on board, you need to involve them in the decision-making. Given the current economic situation, it stands to reason that other people you care about might be worrying about money too - and any suggestions you have to cut costs might make them breathe a sigh of relief.
You could do a Doodle poll to allow people to anonymously vote on their budget, and go with the lowest affordability to include everyone, or use a similar method to decide on new ways of doing things. It’s also a great way to allow older children to have a say in how things are done.
Use this as an opportunity to create new, better traditions
What’s that saying that gets bandied around on LinkedIn? “‘We’ve always done it this way’ is the most dangerous phrase in business”, or something to that effect?
I’m not suggesting you go full Corleone and start running your family like a corporation, but this idea has merit when it comes to family traditions. There should always be scope to move things forward, and creating new, more affordable traditions could be one way to keep things fresh.
A few things you could suggest are:
Family secret Santa. This is my favourite, because it usually means you end up spending a lot less, but everyone gets one incredible gift, rather than lots of token presents. And who wouldn’t want that? There’s also lots of opportunity for fun and gatherings - the drawing of the names, the big reveal etc. could be magical.
A meet up instead of presents. If you’re hoping to move away from materialism and towards experiences, this is the one for you! A meal together, a Christmas party or a show/day trip make a great replacement for hastily-chosen presents that quickly turn to clutter.
Themed gifting. For the last couple of years, my husband and I have bought the same type of present for all of the adults in the family. One year it was a book and their favourite sweet treat, another it was our kids’ school photos in a frame. We were able to make the gifts deeply personal - I spent a long time carefully choosing the books and finding beautiful frames, but it removed a lot of the expense and mental load of shopping, plus it kept things relatively ‘fair’.
Gifts to share. Homemade (or shop bought) hampers for each ‘branch’ or the family can be another brilliant way to reduce both the cost of gifting and the mental strain of choosing something individual for every single person. Similarly, if you have kids with some shared interests, you could try making their main present a shared gift (previously we have done an enormous marble run, friends have done a custom climbing frame for the garden, this year we may consider the new panini sticker album and a glut of stickers). A few presents of their own to open is obviously lovely, but I like the idea of sharing a gift being their tradition, while they have similar interests.
Challenge your own expectations, too
As confronting as this can be, maybe only part of the problem lies externally. Annoyingly, I’ve found this is often the case, and it’s something that I have to grapple with frequently myself. So ask yourself - are these really other people’s expectations, or are you projecting? Does the drive to buy the perfect gift or host the perfect day actually come from within? Are you subconsciously competing with other family members or, worse but more likely, yourself from last year.
Could your own expectations of other people stand to be re-evaluated? Christmas has become so over-commercialised that it’s easy for your own ‘standards’ to creep up and up - make sure you’re not inadvertently making it difficult for others to keep up.
An apology
If you downloaded the Christmas Budget Planner last week, you might have noticed lots of the formulas were incorrect or missing - I’m so sorry! It’s all fixed now, so if you haven’t yet used it, download this version instead.
To do:
Have a chat with your partner to decide your expectation-setting responsibilities
Start opening up those chats with family members - and be kind but firm
Try a Doodle poll to avoid any diplomatic incidents - just make sure you respect the results!
If you’ve set your Christmas budget and now want to monitor your spending to keep it aligned, download Snoop app* and set up a custom ‘Christmas’ category to tag all of your seasonal spending. This will help you to avoid overspending by accident, and capture all of those little miscellaneous expenses that often escape your notice while busting your budget.