‘Hollyoaks’ star Kelle Bryan doesn’t buy her children any Christmas presents.
The 44-year-old actress – who plays Martine Deveraux in the Channel 4 soap – doesn’t splash the cash on her two kids, son Regan and daughter Kayori, for the Christian holiday because they already get too many gifts from their family members.
Kelle – who raises her family with husband husband Jay Gudgeon -also advises the children’s grandparents to give them practical items rather than toys that they don’t really need.
Appearing as a panellist on ‘Loose Women’ on Wednesday (18.12.19), she said: "I don’t buy my kids presents at Christmas because I think they’ve got enough people buying them presents. They’ve got three sets of grandparents, they’ve got relatives and family and friends, so I don’t buy them presents. They’re sat there on Christmas morning with 25 presents to open, are they really going to realise that one of them isn’t from mummy? Right? The rest of the year I’m buying them everything they need and everything they could possibly want and my children don’t really need anything.
"Now, I’m really happy, because my in-laws are amazing because they phone me and say, ‘What do Regan and Kayori need this year?’ And I go, ‘Right, they really need this and they really could do with whatever.’ Whether that’s a new duvet cover or whatever or a new rucksack and then they go and get something they really need and that really helps me out as a parent. Then I don’t have to waste a load of money and I haven’t got a house filled with toys that I’m going to have to try and get rid of at some point. And I make them get give one of their presents to charity."
Kelle – who is a devout Christian – also thinks everyone should think about what they are spending during the festive period because too many people choose to make purchases on their credit cards with money they don’t really have.
The former Eternal singer thinks people when they are stood at a store’s till ready use their flexible friend should imagine they are borrowing that money from a friend rather than a company as it would change their spending habits.
Kelle said: "Credit isn’t actual money, is it? If we thought about going to the shops and we used our credit card like it is a loan, would you spend as much then? But we don’t think about it like that, we just use it. If we had the mindset that this credit card is a loan with every purchase that you make, and you thought about borrowing that from a friend, like, thanks I’ll take that 50 quid and then you’ve got to pay it back … it would change how you thought about it."
The tradition of giving gfts