Christmas for £182

Family Action has had a go at working out the cost of the minimum acceptable Christmas for a family of four, coming up with a figure of £182.

The shopping list includes a Monster High Lagoona's Hydration Station for £34.99 for the daughter and a 4GB Touch Media Player for the son, costing £29.99.

Add in an £18 Christmas Tree and a £15 turkey from Tesco and you can see that there's severe pressure to keep down the cost of everything else.

Decorations and stocking fillers come from Poundland, as you'd expect.

It's worth having a look at the breakdown, which is on pages 19 and 20 of the report.

The point of Family Action's campaign is to ram home how families are particularly stretched in trying to afford Christmas this time round.

Yet even in the £182 budget, there is room to make choices to try to lift everyone's spirits.

The list include gifts for the children's friends, Christmas cards and various treats.