There is no escaping the fact that we are facing into one of the most expensive Christmases of modern times.
And we are facing into it without the financial safety net of all those one-off measures and tax breaks that made the last two Christmases more affordable for households living in the eye of the cost-of-living storm.
The most recent grocery price inflation figures from Worldpanel by Numerator suggested prices in the 12 months to early October were 6.5 per cent higher than a year earlier.
And while that is bad, it’s made even worse when you consider that the price hike is on top of and not instead of all the other increases Irish consumers have endured since the start of the crisis towards the end of 2021.
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For many years Pricewatch has been tracking the typical cost of an Irish Christmas and it has never brought joy to the world. But this year more than most we are concerned that many families will be facing a nightmare before Christmas – and the nightmare starts now.
The pumpkins and fake blood have been wiped off our supermarket shelves over the weekend and replaced with tinsel and baubles and jolly Santas and Christmas tunes as we all get ready for the spendiest time of the year.
But just how bad will it get and how much can a typical household made up of two adults and three children expect to pay before the bells for 2026 start to chime?
Strap yourself in.
1. The food
Forget about the 12 pubs and the parties and the like – when it comes to the festive season the main event is still the Christmas dinner. It might not necessarily be the most expensive element of the season – socialising or presents may well cost more – but it is the thing that Christmas revolves around in most Irish homes.
December 25th is when all the stops are pulled out in good times and in bad times. When we were writing about the cost of Christmas in the dark days that followed the economic crash, we noted that spending on festive food remained resilient – even at the height of the cost-of-living crisis in the winter of 2023, people still spent a lot of lolly on their Christmas dinner. They scrimped in other areas but the big day remained sacred.
[ Costly Christmas in store as grocery prices soarOpens in new window ]
Last Christmas was a very happy one for Irish supermarkets, with shoppers spending at levels not seen since the panic-buying recorded as Ireland went into lockdown in early 2020, according to Worldpanel.
The value of sales over the four weeks to December 29th increased by 4.4 per cent to reach nearly €1.4 billion, making it the biggest sales month of the year, despite grocery price inflation climbing by 3.6 per cent.
Monday, December 23rd was the most popular shopping day of the year, with consumers spending €107 million on that one day alone, €11.9 million more than the highest trading day in 2023.
And why do we spend so much on the big shop before the big day?
It is because we eat all around us on Christmas Day and fill our trolleys like we are heading into a nuclear winter.
We have said it before and we will say it again: the amount of food many Irish people consume on the big day is staggering; there will be many people munching and drinking their way through 6,000 calories on December 25th alone. That is about three times what you might consume on a normal day.
But we are not here to talk about calories – we are here to talk about cost.
As we do every year, we priced a range of items normally eaten on Christmas Day including turkey, ham, vegetables, starters, desserts, breakfasty things, chocolates and all the rest.
We’ll start with the turkey. Prices vary wildly at the best of times and you can handily spend around 40 quid on a 7kg turkey or €100 depending on where you buy it and how it has been reared.
This year is not the best of times and Irish turkey farmers have faced the same cost-of-living pressures as the rest of us, with higher energy and feed costs and higher wages likely to push prices up.
They could be pushed up even higher depending on the trajectory of the outbreak of avian flu spreading in some areas, with many estimates suggesting people will pay around 10 per cent more for their fowl this year than they did last year.
We priced it as €58 in 2024 so we will add €6 on to the cost for 2025.
There is also a pretty big range when it comes to hams, with a 1.5kg Marks & Spencer Outdoor Bred Heritage Gold Dry Cured Crackling Gammon costing €32 and a 1.8kg ham fillet in Tesco costing €12. Last year we priced a 2kg ham at €10 and, based on this week’s prices, the cost has jumped by about 30 per cent, which means it will cost of €13 this Christmas. That is €76 and we’ve only got two things in our imaginary trolley.
And we haven’t even started our day. Before almost everything else there’s the breakfast. We priced up the cost of sausages (€3.90), rashers (€5.98), eggs (€4.59), white and black pudding (€5.60), baked beans (€1.90), McCambridges bread (€2.19), Kerrygold butter (€3.29) and a bottle of freshly squeezed orange juice (€3). The total for a fairly modest Christmas breakfast to set you up for the big day comes in at €26.55 which means our spending on Christmas Day food alone is now over €100 and there isn’t so much as a single chocolate eaten. A ridiculously small tub of Cadbury’s Roses (it weighs just 550g, which is nearly half what it would have been in times past) costs €7.
Then there is the biscuits, the mince pies, fresh cream, weird trifle ingredients, melon, plum pudding, the medley of random vegetables, the stuffing, the pigs in a blanket, the cranberry sauce and the bread sauce and all the other accoutrements that may find their way on to your table. By our back-of-a-napkin calculations, the cost of a what you might need to feed a family of five comfortably on Christmas Day (with probably too many leftovers for grazing on days after that) comes in at least €275 – bearing in mind the turkey, ham and the breakfast alone is more than a third of our total. If we add another €200 for food to cover you for the three days before and the three days after Christmas Day, that takes our total food bill to €475.
2. The booze
Next up is the booze – an undeniable star of the season in Ireland. A case of 20 cans of lager cost us €44 last week while eight cans of stout was €17 – both marginally up on last year. We bought – at least in a virtual sense – four bottles of pretty ordinary wine (two red and two white) in Tesco at a total cost of €68, while two bottles of the cheapest champagne we could find in Aldi set us back €45.98. We added a bottle of whiskey at €32.50 (the same price as last year) and a bottle of gin at €24 – which was a euro less than last year. We considered throwing a bottle of Baileys into the mix too but as we didn’t do it last year (for reasons that are beyond us now) we don’t do it now. Even so, the total bill for booze came in at €231.48.
Now, before you get all puritanical on us, we are not suggesting our theoretical family will drink all of this alcohol on their own – although we have no doubt many will be able to manage it. But it might come in handy if they have to look after any friends or family who might visit over the Christmas period.
If the two adults in this scenario go to the pub just twice between December 18th and January 3rd and drink four pints each (or their alcoholic equivalent) each time, then the bill for booze rises to €373.48.
3. The tree
The cost of a Christmas tree varies depending on where you get it and what class of tree it is. You can probably pick one up in the car park of your local supermarket or scout den for 30 quid or spend more than €150 on having one delivered from the Wicklow Mountains to your home but, for the sake of our sums, we will allow €85 to cover the tree and another €20 for a wreath – that is a marginal increase on last year.
4. The decorations
Unless you are starting from scratch or have a passion for the €20 baubles they have been selling in the Brown Thomas Christmas store since the middle of August you will hopefully not have to spend too much on decorations – and if you are starting from scratch can we suggest you pop into your local Penneys, which has a huge range of festive stuff for buttons. Last year we allocated €50 for refreshing decorations and buying Christmas-themed tablecloths and napkins and the like, so we will stick to that amount this year.
5. The parties
If you work in a place that throws a Christmas party then you will most likely have to attend – although can we stress that attendance is not mandatory and your absence will soon be forgotten.
But leaving aside our miserable Christmas spirit, if you do go – and sure you might as well – then it will cost you a few bob whether your company stumps up for a few greasy cocktail sausages and limp chips in the pub or lays on a swanky seven-course meal in a fancy restaurant or a night out in Funderland (well, we can dream, can’t we?).
For this exercise, we will assume that the two adults in our fantasy family do go to their work dos and end up buying three drinks each over the course of the evening and then pay €20 each for a taxi home. If we allow this couple to spend a total of €100 each on new clothes and/or a hairdo before the party then the total spending comes in at a pretty steep €282.
6. The presents
As we have said many, many times on this page and on the telly and on radio, Santa Claus covers the cost of all the children’s presents that find their way under our trees on the night before Christmas, so that is something parents don’t need to be worrying about. But there are other presents that will need to be bought.
Assuming our fictional family buy two presents each for three children plus one present each for the adults in the frame, that amounts to a total of eight presents. Now, many households will probably have more than eight presents under the tree come Christmas morning and many others will have less. If we allow a spend of €60 per present, the total cost comes in at €480, which is €20 less than we budgeted for last year. For some people, this amount will be very low. For others it will be absolutely unaffordable.
7. The pantos
If there are visits to Santa and pantomimes on the cards, they will come at a cost. Five tickets to see Beauty and the Beast in the Gaiety would have set us back €239 when we priced them last week. The cost of a visit to Santa varies wildly but if we allow €20 per child – and have three children – the cost of the panto and the Santa visit comes in at €299 – and we will add €50 to cover the cost of treats and sweets on the way to and from both events, taking the total to €349.
8. The cards
A stamp now costs €1.65, with a packet of 10 costing €16.50, suggesting that An Post is not mad on bulk-buying discounts. That is €3 more than last year. If you send 20 cards and pay just 50 cent for each card, the total cost of your admirable determination to keep in touch with people will climb to €43.
[ Christmas budgeting: Start today and save €700 for the big dayOpens in new window ]
9. The jumpers
There is no escaping the Christmas pyjamas and jumper plague – actually there is, but it is a bit grinchy so you may as well just give in to it. If we add up the total cost of festive PJs and jumpers and Christmas clothes you might want to wear when visiting your granny, it will come in at around €100 – which is €50 less than we allocated this time last year.
10. The energy
Energy prices have climbed slightly over recent months so we will add a fiver on to our festive electricity allowance, taking the total cost of roasting a turkey, lighting the tree, watching all the extra telly and festooning the inside and outside of your house like a Las Vegas casino to €65.
11. The visiting
If you want to visit relatives either down the country or in the city you’ll need to get there. A return trip cross-country from Dublin to Cork, allowing for a few shorter hops, will cost you about €100 in petrol or diesel.
12. The donations
And then there is charitable donations. Last year we allowed €100 for that and we will increase that by 10 per cent to €110 this year.
Now, what’s the damage? We added up all these costs and they came in at a fairly eye-watering €2,763.96. Last year when we carried out that same exercise, the total cost was €2,373.50. So even though we cut some minor corners this year, our spending climbed by 16.5 per cent.
What is even more depressing is that when we carried out the same pricing survey a decade ago, the cost came in a little over €2,000, a price that we thought was unconscionably high back then.
