Christmas and kids – they are two words that often go hand-in-hand. Unfortunately, it’s not quite as simple as that. Something else which comes into the picture is the fact that shopping with kids isn’t (usually) much fun. Unless it involves toys, it can be extremely stressful indeed. Black Friday sales see the worst of shopping, and with kids in only makes life harder.
When you then throw Christmas into the mix, frustrations can quickly boil over. Let’s not forget that this is the peak shopping period for the year and when you are trying to keep bored children happy in such busy places, it’s difficult to say the least.
There are some tips that can make your plight a little easier, though. These nuggets of advice are universal around the world as well, meaning that whether you are hitting the Covent Garden stores, or somewhere completely different, you should be able to make use of them.
It needs to be a two-way process
Particularly if you are up against time, this first point can be difficult. However, you need to try your utmost to make this a two-way process and ultimately, not make your Christmas shopping trip too functional.
If we are shopping alone, a lot of us fall into the habit of working through a list in a very logical way. Well, children don’t quite believe in logic in quite the same way, and this means that you need to throw some fun into the mix. Visit some of the shops that they like to go into, just so the day isn’t all about the grown-up places.
Add some pitstops
For those of you who are operating on a budget, simply taking snacks of your choice might suffice for this next point. For those who are happy to push the boat out a little, try and plan in coffee (or milkshake breaks) or even lunch.
This point isn’t just about adding pitstops for the purposes of refueling the kids but also to break up the day. In the eyes of a little person, spending hours trawling around shops is the definition of torture. Throw in a restaurant and café, and suddenly the day becomes a bit easier to cope with.
Give them their own shopping list
At Christmas, this is a tip that is always going to go down well. Particularly if you can ask them to help buy their own friends’ presents, it all becomes quite the experience for them.
Make a game out of the whole day
Following on from the previous point, there’s no reason why you can’t make a game out of the whole day. Sure, you might not have lots of children’s gifts to buy, but at the same time you can ask them to almost go on a treasure hunt to help you along your way. In fact, when it comes to Christmas, some stores will even have their own games to hand out to the children, so in some ways shopping at this time of the year doesn’t have to be entirely stressful after all!