Christmas and the credit crunch

Great ‘Explain to kids they may get less this Xmas' Hunt: How to break the news...
It's a tricky but crucial, explaining to kids you've less money for Christmas. So I want to tap MoneySavers' ideas for the best phrases and stories for different age groups. How can you explain Santa’s budget’s been hit? Or to teens that the designer labels their friends have are out? Plus what free or cheap ways are there to make their Christmas magical?

• Father Christmas is trying to be kind to the environment and reduce the carbon footprint of his sleigh (reindeer have to eat a lot to fly the big heavy presents around the world, and that makes a lot of reindeer poo!), so he's putting smaller presents on his sleigh this year.

• Santa and his elves all kept their money in the bank in Iceland. It was so cold in Iceland that the money (called 'assets' in Icelandic) has all been frozen, so Santa and the elves can't get their money out to go and buy all the presents. However, they managed to find some money in the piggy bank at Santa's house, so you'll still get presents, just smaller ones as they have to make the money go very far so all the children in the world get presents.

• We buy things when we have money whatever time of year, focusng more on birthdays which is personal to them and leave Christmas to mainly token gifts.

• My husband and I told our seven year old DD that Father Christmas would not be bringing as many gifts this year due to the fact the reindeer food had gone up (like our food) and it was more important that the animals were looked after well than people getting lots of gifts.