The main ingredient for a magical Christmas is keeping Father Christmas alive. The whole fiasco is quite a feat! There’s quietly creeping around at night filling up stockings and perfectly placing presents under the tree. There’s signing off gifts from Father Christmas. There’s taking a big bite of the cookie and carrot and leaving icing sugar boot marks on the floor. We do all this and so much more just to witness the pure joy of innocent magic in our children’s eyes as they wake up on Christmas morning… often way too early (I remember running into my parents bedroom with my brother at 5 in the morning one year!). Keeping the whole Christmas time running smoothly can be a challenge, especially when trying to maintain the magic so here’s a few tips and tricks to keep everything running smoothly.

1. Father Christmas doesn’t get all the presents

   Many times I’ve seen parents selflessly sign off every single present they get their child as “from Santa”. This seems like a wonderfully magical idea at first until the rest of the family come round and give your children presents signed off from them. Who then, are the only people that didn’t give your child a present? YOU! Getting the question “mummy, daddy, what did you get me for Christmas?” is a hilariously unjust moment when you realise you have given all the credit of every overpriced toy to a magical man with elves. “oh I work very closely with Santa honey” is probably the best thing you could say to that. But nonetheless to your child, everyone got them a present but you so I always recommend putting out some toys from Father Christmas and then having a few of the nicer toys perhaps from yourself.

2. Different colour paper for young siblings

“That's MY toy!”. The competition commences of young children not understanding whose toy is whose and just wanting to open anything that looks like a present. Once the wrong toy has been opened, you’re in the tantrum zone as of course a child will get very upset if their brother or sister opens up their toys. One way to combat this is to ask them before Christmas, what colour they would like their wrapping paper to be as you will tell the Elves so they know exactly which presents are theirs! This also helps them to compartmentalise and separate their presents from their siblings in their head which leads to less arguments over toys and less wanting to play with their siblings toys.

3. Don’t set your expectations too high

Often it is the parents who are the most excited for Christmas. We can’t wait for children to open the presents and feel all the love and be appreciative of everything. We can’t wait for the whole family to come round and the kids love joining in and feeling the family warmth. However unfortunately a lot of the time our frustrations and sadness over Christmas comes from our kids not meeting those expectations. They open their presents and cry because their sibling got the thing they wanted. They don’t like a particular present and cry about not getting something else. They just want to get the family thing over with and go up to their rooms to play on gadgets. It’s the complete lack of appreciation and ungratefulness that can be so hurtful! If it’s young kids you’ve got, then they don’t really understand gratitude or the feelings of gratefulness. Young children react with big emotions over anything that doesn’t go the way they wanted it to, just like we all do, but young children lack the understanding to rationalise their disappointment and be grateful for everything they do have.

Similarly teenagers are in a selfish era. They are learning the finer details of how to successfully integrate into adult life and are also finding the want to naturally distance from the family in order to establish independence. All of this by no means, gives your kids the right to make you feel rubbish and unappreciated over Christmas, you can talk to them about that. Rather it’s important to acknowledge the expectations you have on them and adjust it to be more realistic. Your teenager may not want to stick around for all the family events but if they join in for a game or two and go upstairs then that’s absolutely fine!

Have a very Merry Christmas, with love from Nanny Emmy.

Thanks for reading! If you have any questions or topics you would like me to discuss in future blogs please do send an email to nannyemmyquestions@gmail.com