Mums spend a whopping 58 hours preparing for Christmas

The average mum will have spent 58 hours preparing for Christmas by the time the big day arrives, it emerged last week. The equivalent of seven days will be taken up choosing, purchasing and lovingly wrapping presents, organising who will visit and taking care of food shopping. On top of that she will have spent six hours hanging decorations and putting up the tree and another four hours driving to deliver presents. Christmas dinner in itself takes over thirteen hours’ worth of planning with 60 per cent of Mums claiming it was the most important aspect of Christmas. Richard Bailey, head of group marketing for intu, owners of regional shopping centre intu Eldon Square, which carried out the survey said: “It seems Mum is a bit of a god-send when it comes to Christmas day. In many cases the mum of the family is the hub of family organisation, so it makes sense that the same would happen at Christmas. It can be easy to take our mums for granted; so to help we’ve enlisted the help of a panel of experts – The Christmasologists – here to take some of the stress out of Christmas.” The research also showed over half of women put whole days aside to devote to Christmas preparation, which they mostly plan to use shopping for presents. But food preparation was revealed as the most time-intensive task, taking a massive 13 and a half hours overall. Accumulating booze, mince pies, chocolate and dinner ingredients uses six and a half hours, the mums said, whilst cooking and food prep takes an additional seven. Shopping for presents was also important – with mums spending an average total of nine and a half hours spent searching for the perfect gifts on the high street, with the same amount of hours spent browsing online. Once the presents are bought, wrapping them up beautifully takes just over six hours, the research showed - whilst another six go on cleaning and decorating the house to look good for visitors. Five hours will go on delivering presents to relatives, four hours on discussing who will be coming to visit, and another four hours spent chatting with potential dinner guests over the phone. Around six in ten of the women claimed making the dinner is the Christmas event they take most charge of, and was also seen as the most important job on the big day. In addition to the endless tasks, over half of mums write and send all the family loving Christmas cards, whilst four in ten spend more time coming up with inventive places to hide all the gifts from prying eyes. The majority of mums said that present buying is the toughest aspect of Christmas to get right, with one in four who said they even buy presents for their family to give to others. A huge 56 per cent of the mums polled claimed it’s ‘just expected’ for them to take control of Christmas, though 42 per cent admitted they often take on more than they can handle. And mum really is the word when it comes to Christmas, as a huge 91 per cent of mums admitted they do the organising in the lead up to the day - and only 22 per cent said they’d consider someone else to do it. Three in ten claimed they were a perfectionist who would hate not knowing what was going on, whilst a quarter said they’re the only person who can do it properly. And they might have a point, as the average mum claimed to have witnessed at least one disaster occur on Christmas day due to someone else taking over – including a shortage of food, too many guests arriving or missing presents. Richard Bailey added: ‘’Organising every aspect of Christmas can be time-consuming, so any way of easing the load can really help. We’ve enlisted a panel of experts to give gift inspiration, provide handy hints and tips and answer any questions mum may have. Hailing from the worlds of Fashion, Beauty, Cookery, Technology, Toys and Games and Homes and Interiors, the intu Christmasologists have all the bases covered and are giving advice and answering questions via #askintu on Twitter.”