Mom-Of-22 Sue Radford Starts Mammoth Holiday Gift Wrapping Task With $6,500 Worth Of Goods

Dec 09, 2020

It is common knowledge that Santa Claus is very busy at Christmas. Traveling around on his sleigh pulled by his reindeers visiting every family to deliver their Christmas presents is tiring work. But parents and carers are also very busy during the holiday season as they also need to provide their families with presents and festive food.

One set of parents, Sue and Noel Radford from Lancashire in the UK, have a busier time than most at Christmas. This is because they have 22 children and need to buy, and wrap presents for each of them.

Parents Noel, 49, and Sue, 45, need to put aside between $135 and $335 on gifts for each of their 22 kids. This means that the parents need a minimum of at least $6,500 in the bank just for presents. Add food, clothing, toiletries, and other family events to the list and the total really starts racking up!

In terms of financing the entire holiday season, the dutiful and generous parents set up a proper budget beforehand. They also begin saving throughout the year, the Daily Mail reports.

Sue Radford told the Daily Mail, “We don’t have credit cards—I don’t believe in them—so we budget on between £100 ($135) and £200 ($335) for a main present for each of the kids.” Radford continued, “We save for it over the year, putting money away in an account. I do supermarket savings stamps for the food shop too.”

Other than child benefits, the parents don’t receive any help from the government so provide for their family entirely with savings and the income Noel Radford makes from his small bakery business, The Radford’s Pie Company.

The Radfords are Britain’s biggest family, according to The Sun. Their entire brood consists of 22 children and four grandchildren, but the kids who still currently live at home are Chloe, 25; Jack, 23; Daniel, 21; Luke, 20; Katie, 18; James, 17; Ellie, 15; Aimee, 14; Josh, 13; Max, 11; Tillie, 10; Oscar, nine; Casper, eight; Hallie, five; Phoebe, four; Archie, three, Bonnie, two; baby Heidie and granddaughter Ophelia.

Sue Radford told The Sun: “I buy presents through the year, and wrap them as they come in.” And with so many presents to wrap we can imagine it takes a very long time, so the sooner she starts, the better! This is why the Radfords start wrapping presents as early as August.

Sue Radford recently posted on the Radford family Instagram page an image showing a room full of unwrapped presents. It was accompanied by the caption: “Might as well make a start on the wrapping.” We definitely don’t envy this enormous task!

In the image Sue posted it is possible to make out a huge pile of Fisher-Price toys, KindiKids items, and packages from Amazon.

"One of our biggest headaches at Christmas is where to hide all the gifts. We have them everywhere—even in the boiler cupboard. The trick is remembering where," she revealed.

Sue Radford also covered the wrapping logistics in her interview. It’s a question on all of our minds—how is it possible to wrap so many presents? Sue told The Sun she is a "demon wrapper" and has claimed she can wrap 20 presents in just 15 minutes. The family is said to get through 60 to 70 rolls of wrapping paper each winter.

Each child is given a large sack containing all their presents. The sacks are personalized with their names so all the gifts don’t get mixed up—we can’t imagine what chaos that would cause!

The larger sized goodies are put on the floor with clear labels on to make sure each gift goes to the right person. The busy mom explained how their sitting room is left littered with wrapping paper once all the gifts are opened.

Sue said: "The worst thing is the packaging. We have a mountain of it. After Christmas we have to take the minibus to the tip to get rid of it.”

The Radfords always put 100 percent effort into their Christmas celebrations every year. They posted a video of a huge Christmas food shop for the family and enjoyed an Elf on the Shelf themed breakfast to mark the start of advent. Noel and Sue Radford also put an impressive Christmas tree up in their lounge and decorated the house to look festive, we can see that nothing has been spared at Christmas for this family!

Are you a wizard at wrapping presents? How many will you need to wrap this year? Let us know and spread the festive joy this holiday season.