Bikes

We planned many months ago what we wanted to get the boys for Christmas. A swing set for the garden.
We even went so far as to purchase it on lay-by and start paying it off week by week.

However Alex decided that he would manage to ride his bike with just 2 wheels back in October / November and it quickly became apparent that they would need new bikes as well.

You guessed it, this was not on our planned Christmas List but knew how much kids love riding bikes and how good it is for them then we relented.
I got them on lay-by as well, so we had secured them and they got to stay in the shop until we collected them on paying off the last payment. Makes storage so much easier.

We had discussed many times about how we were going to give the boys the bikes, seeing as they had a large present on its way already we really didn't want to over spoil them with giving them bikes for Christmas as well. Way too much in my eyes.

We even discussed getting them to the caravan, where we were going on Boxing Day, so they were there when we got there and that took the whole receiving huge amounts of gifts on Christmas Day pressure off.

However, the plan got made simpler at the beginning of December when Grandad came home for a visit from China for my cousins wedding.
He annouced that he wanted to give the boys some money as he didn't know what to get them for Christmas. I mentioned the bikes and said he was happy to contribute to them if so desired. he thought this was an excellent thing, as then the boys were not getting more toys that were not going to get played with and take up lots of unwanted space.
This then lead to my next thought, that we could actually collect the bikes immediately and that way Grandad would get to see the boys enjoy the bikes whilst he was with us. In fact this very thing had happened 3 years earlier when Grandma was visiting for Dubai and they brought the bikes the boys were currently riding.

A quick check from daddy and Gradad

Another quick check from daddy

So the boys gained brand new bikes for Christmas this year but they didn't get overloaded with presents on Christmas Day because they had an early Christmas at the beginning of December and that took the whole load off of Christmas Day.
In fact on Christmas Day they had even forgotten that they had received bikes for Christmas until they mentioned the bikes and we reminded them that they had received them for Christmas.