No Christmas Gifts for Three Years and Our Family Is Happier, Less Stressed and Greener
This will be the third year I've bought my darling husband and my dearest children absolutely nothing for Christmas. Not a single toy, item of clothing or stocking filler. Nada. When I tell people this, they look aghast. But I can honestly say it has made all five of us happier compared to previous years when we drowned in things we didn't want or need. It was on Boxing Day 2022 that I first decided: no more presents. I wrote in the Daily Mail about my resentment at the panic-buying, excessive spending and the waste. The kids, then aged five and two, seemed to get no more than a few moments of pleasure before most of their gifts were ready for landfill. The plastic figures, bricks, animals – all of them were enjoyed for just days before being discarded. It wasn't bringing any of us festive cheer.
In This Article:
- Boxing Day 2022 I Decide No More Christmas Presents
- The Year That Changed Everything for Our Family
- A Breakthrough Year for the Family
- A Toy Loft Rescue and Alternatively Renting Big-Ticket Items
- Time, Attention and The Replacement of Things with Experiences
- Time for Proper Focus and Shared Moments
- Grandmothers, Experiences and The New Policy
- The Children React to a Gift Free Christmas
- The Final Reflection: The Right Decision for Our Family
Boxing Day 2022 I Decide No More Christmas Presents
On Boxing Day 2022, Dinah van Tulleken (pictured with her husband, Chris, and their daughters, Lyra, Sasha and Dolly) decided no more Christmas presents. In fact, not having a list at all is a liberation. I could claim that my initial decision had been strictly ethical or environmental, and those things do matter to me. But the truth is Christmas had simply become too expensive. And not only in my household. The numbers are wild: according to the website Finder, the average British adult plans to spend £514 on Christmas presents in 2025. The Bank of England reports that households typically spend 20 to 30 per cent more than usual in December, with gifting a major cause of this expenditure. No wonder more than 60 per cent of British adults say that Christmas is now unaffordable, according to the Trussell Trust and YouGov. Elf on the Shelf – an imported American tradition that sees toy elves watching over children throughout December to ensure they're on Santa's nice list – is my personal nemesis. Are we really teaching our pre-schoolers that the only reason to behave well is because they 'get stuff'? In fact every parent knows the truth: what determines your Christmas stocking isn't your children's behaviour, it's your budget. Many of us are spending money we don't have because we've bought into the idea that gifts are what a happy Christmas is all about.
The Year That Changed Everything for Our Family
But as well as the money, buying all this stuff adds massively to our mental load. I think I'm speaking for all of us when I say I don't need more to think about at this time of year. Multiple studies show that women disproportionately bear the burden of planning, organising, remembering, buying, wrapping and managing gifts in families. Christmas doesn't just hit our bank balances – it saps our time and mental energy. My husband and I both work full-time. December already brings school concerts, Christmas jumper days, nativity costumes and class parties. Even the Royal Logistic Corps would struggle to make it all happen. It's not just time-consuming, it's stressful. A 2023 Oxford study for Ocado found that Christmas shopping raised heart rates by 44 per cent, to an average of 115bpm – the same as watching a horror film or taking an exam.
A Breakthrough Year for the Family
That first year I didn't have to decide which of my neighbours would get a card (I stopped that exhausting tradition too, and you know what? We're still friends with our neighbours!). I didn't have to keep a drawer of tat just in case someone brought an unexpected gift we were expected to reciprocate. I didn't have to try to get something really thoughtful for the people I love. In 2022, I wrote that article about my decision, shared it with everyone I knew, and it was a Christmas miracle. I saved hundreds of pounds, days of time and worry, and binfuls of things we didn't need. Once I stepped back, I saw the physical impact too – the sheer volume of stuff flooding into our home. We were drowning in plastic.
A Toy Loft Rescue and Alternatively Renting Big-Ticket Items
Lyra is now eight, Sasha is five, and we've added 18-month-old Indigo. You can imagine the amount of brightly-coloured landfill-in-waiting we accumulate throughout the year. After all, we still do birthday presents and the odd 'I picked this up at an airport' absent-parent-guilt gift. In the old days, after Christmas I would go to buy even more plastic in the form of storage containers to try to get some order into the junk before it inevitably went to charity shops or the dump. The van Tullekens pictured in 2023, the first year they did a presents-free Christmas The impact on our home was bad enough – but it's far worse for the planet. The environmental data is devastating: 12 million tonnes of plastic enter the environment every year – the equivalent of a bin lorry emptying into the ocean every minute, or enough to fill the Royal Albert Hall 1,500 times over the year. In the UK we cut down around 50,000 trees annually just to make wrapping paper.
Time, Attention and The Replacement of Things with Experiences
Back in 2023, I admit I'd made a contingency plan. At the end of the summer I'd hidden a much-loved toy in the loft – a 1980s multi-storey car park (you remember, the one with the lift for cars to go up and down). On Christmas morning, our two children, Lyra and Sasha were delighted to be reunited with it and both played with it for hours. It turns out that rediscovering a beloved toy brings as much joy as tearing into something new – and because there were fewer distractions, this one toy provoked proper, focused, story-telling play. They also got rental bikes. And yes, this was my get-out-of-jail-free card. I wasn't technically buying them a gift – as soon as they grew out of them, the bikes went back to the company and we got others, also rented – but it did mean there were big-ticket items with ribbons on the handlebars under the tree. The bikes, I should also add, got used daily throughout the year. And they'll be getting an upgrade on those bikes again this year.
Time for Proper Focus and Shared Moments
But perhaps the main reason it all went so well is that, unlike the Christmas before, my husband Chris and I weren't feeling broke and strung out. We made an extra effort to spend proper time with the girls on the day, playing games and giving them our full attention. We even managed to switch off our phones for a few hours. Our experience is backed up by research which shows that having fewer toys encourages creativity, increases focus and promotes imaginative play. One study from Oxford University, looking at 3,000 children aged three to five, found that parental engagement, not toys or electronics, was the best predictor of academic achievement and emotional development. Your time and energy are the best gifts you can give a child – and, though they're always in short supply in a busy household, Chris and I do have a little more of both at Christmas.
Grandmothers, Experiences and The New Policy
We also had more money for some special experiences over the holiday. Nothing extravagant, but we went to a couple of shows both in 2023 and last year. This year, we're doing the same, and have booked Santa's grotto at London Zoo (yes, Santa himself hasn't got the memo and will give them all a soft toy, and I won't be Scrooge-like enough to tell him not to). How have our relatives reacted to our new non-gifting policy? Well, the aunts, uncles and extended family are still on a total ban for all presents – which means they don't get anything from us and we don't want anything from them – but for the grandmothers we have carved out an exemption for experiences. My mum has adapted beautifully – she will put the 'gift money' into their junior ISAs and she reads to them throughout the year. My wonderful mother-in-law is taking the girls to Matilda The Musical rather than drowning them in things.
The Children React to a Gift Free Christmas
But the multi-million-dollar question is surely how the girls, that bit bigger now, are reacting to their atypical Christmas. My biggest fear was that they would end up feeling deprived. Left out. Miserable. But I can honestly say the opposite has happened. This hasn't taken away any of the magic of Christmas. Lyra, at eight, has pointed out that it would be impossible for Father Christmas to get to every house in such little time – but she's still happy to smile and nod and keep the dream alive for Sasha. And Sasha really does believe that an old guy with a big white beard and a red suit will be squeezing himself down our chimney this year, bringing with him the 'new' rental bike that we've done a frankly terrible job of hiding in the garden for the past two weeks. The idea of Santa is more exciting than any present he might be leaving. He is the magic. We'll still put out the brandy and the mince pie, and a carrot for the reindeer. Lyra understands the environmental stuff. Pictures of a big landfill site and those huge slicks of ocean plastic persuaded her that plastic toys all have the same fate. She enjoys announcing to her friends: 'We're not getting presents because we're saving the planet.' Sasha's friends all want the latest toys, but in her Christmas letter to Santa – which she still writes – she said: 'I wish for chickens and the fox not eat them.' We loved having our chickens, but the Hackney foxes, who sadly broke into the coop months ago, are not going anywhere. She'll be happy so long as Lyra doesn't get anything either. Equality, at five, is everything. As for Indigo – she's busy scribbling on rugs and dismantling decorations. An empty cardboard box might be the best present she could imagine. Yes, soppy as it is, they want a morning at home, just the five of us – doing nothing except being together. Oh, and eating mince pies.
The Final Reflection: The Right Decision for Our Family
My husband Chris is perpetually at risk of relapsing into gift-buying. I caught him scrolling eBay for second-hand Star Wars toys now that he has got the girls into the favourite films of his childhood. 'Are these for them or for you?' I asked. So far, the prices have put him off. And he is bitterly regretting not keeping his original figures in their boxes. I do, occasionally, wonder if I'm depriving them of the thrill I remember – the avalanche of wrapping paper, the objects piled up under the Christmas tree covered in tinsel. But what we have gained is so much bigger than gifts: less stress, less stuff, fewer bills, more time, more clarity about what matters. I know this isn't for everyone. But three years on, this no longer feels like an experiment. It feels like part of who we are. Consumption doesn't make us happy. It doesn't help the planet or our children. We now have a little more time and attention for both, and that is what makes our Christmas.
