Christmas with adopted kids

[Newbie2be]

Hi! We're planning to adopt and our social worker has advised us to tone down Christmas, certainly the first one. Just wondered if anyone has had a Christmas with their kids that hasn't gone to plan. Any top tips of things to do or not to do?

[Lilka]

I think it's best to keep things low key in the first months home, so if your little one/s comes home in the latter part of the year, definitely have a quieter christmas than you might otherwise have had. If they come home in say January, then you may be able by 11 months in to do more though

All my christmases are 'low key', mainly because of DD2, who does not cope well with changes in routine anyway, let alone the excitement of christmas! DS would be fine with a more 'busy' christmas though. To be honest, Christms rarely goes to plan. But there's always next year....!!

My tips would be (the first applies to all children, but the others more for slightly older children)

• Don't have a massive family party at your house. A noisy group of 15 unfamiliar people might be frightening or too overstimulating. Stick with either just you and the kids, or just a couple of other people eg GP's
  
• It is oh so tempting to splash out on loads of presents, but I would hold back from buying huge amounts.
  
• You can spread out the present opening. I always do this because neither DD could cope with too many presents at once. We have a couple on Christmas eve, some on Christmas morning, some in late afternoon and the last family presents on boxing day
  
• Structure the day and tell your child what will happen when
  

And try and enjoy it!! Maybe it won't go to plan, but you will have many christmases together :) Try and create some special family christmas traditions you can do every year

[Moomoomie]

We have created lots of family Christmas traditions which for me is very special.
Our first Christmas with our older two girls was very low key and quite bitter sweet because it was our first Christmas without my father too, who died very suddenly whilst we were going through our home study.
Christmas now is still fairly quite and low key because we have small families.
Dd3 came home on the 20th Deccember a few years ago, so that was a very quiet time.!!

[Devora]

I quite like quiet Christmases - they can feel very special.

I agree that it's about keeping things calm and not over-stimulating in the early months. Too much excitement or disruption of routine can be very stressful for a child.

Concentrate on the loveliness of all being together, getting to know each other, and start building small routines that will become your family traditions - decorating the tree, leaving carrots out for Rudolf etc

[Lovesoftplay]

We had the exact same advice from our social worker, but totally ignored it. I really regret not listening as our first Christmas was a bit of a nightmare :(

We went totally overboard on the amount of presents and both our DS were overwhelmed and had meltdowns. We were so intent on creating a fairytale Christmas that we forgot about the basics.

I really wish we had had a quiet first Christmas, just us 4, building traditions and enjoying being a little family.

I know how tempting it is to try and be supermum/dad at Christmas time, but no amount of presents will make up for snuggling in front of a fire and just cuddling (our second Christmas!!)

[Kewcumber]

HA! my advice is totally inappropriate... my first xmas was in a tiny flat in Kazakhstan (where they don;t celebrate Xmas!) we got a parcel with mincepies and tinsel and christmas cards from some lovely mumsnetters the day after boxing day so we "celebrated" with a mince pie. No presents no fuss - just me and my mum and DS. And it was just fine. HE was only one so had no ieda what was going on - I was happy as I had him with me (would have been happier still with a visa to get home!). All was fine.

Seriously it really depends on how old they are and what their expectations (if any are).

But that was certainly a Xmas which didn't go to plan as I was expecting to be home on 23rd December and didn't get home finally until 20th Jan!

[FamiliesShareGerms]

Adopted or not, I think the best Christmases for children involve spending time with their closest family and eating chocolate in their pyjamas!

[Devora]

Yeah, don't do it kew's way