Gone are the days when children would circle their favourite toy in the catalogue in the aspiration of getting what they desire from Santa.

Instead, social media hauls – where influencers display items they have bought – are the now leave-to catalogue, with some parents saying it heaps added pressure on an already demanding period.

Parenting blogger Charlotte Harding said she found the expense of Christmas presents this year “quite demanding”.

“As the boys have got older, the presents have become more expensive,” she added.

Charlotte said game consoles and concert tickets were the main items on the aspiration list, but it is not just presents on the large day that add up.

“The boys have asked for advent calendars that are about £25 plus, which to be truthful would be a Christmas now in itself. But this is for the run up to Christmas.”

She said she had also heard of youthful girls asking for beauty advent calendars costing hundreds of pounds.

Charlotte said social media played a large role when children make their Christmas lists, in particular “younger and younger” influencers who advertise products.

“But children don’t recognize the amount of money these things expense… and the parents are really starting to feel the pressure of it.”

But it is not just Christmas presents and gifts that are costly.

Social media trends such as Elf on the Shelf and Christmas Eve Boxes, as well as attending events, are also driving prices up around the festive period.

“The latest pattern I’ve seen is a plane and you leave view Santa, and apparently it’s amazing,” said parent blogger Stephanie Handwell.

Stephanie is behind the blog Welsh Mummy Steph and she’s felt the pressure of social trends in the history.

“You’ve got the Polar Express, the Santa experiences and afternoon tea with Santa. I sometimes have to check myself and ponder when I was a kid, I saw Santa once and it was still magical,” she said.

“It was probably the things we did as a household that I really recall.”

She admitted she has felt the pressure of social trends in the history.

“I’ve decided to keep my PR calendar minimised because it creates this expectation, and I don’t like that because I feel that myself as a parent,” she said.

Caitlin Acreman, who is behind the Haul at 4 Instagram page, has also scaled back her Christmas-related content because of the expense of living crisis.

“You can still have an amazing Christmas and make loads of memories in a distribution-amiable way,” she said.

Caitlin said she loves to view people celebrating Christmas events online, but she believes “comparison is the thief of joy”.

“I like to leave on my stories a display there is a person there, I’m a mum of two and I’m constantly finding ways to be distribution amiable and save those pennies.

“I like to arrive on there because people can relate to it a little bit better,” she said.

Cathrine Jansson-Boyd, a professor of buyer psychology at Anglia Ruskin University in Cambridge, said Christmas can be a complicated period for many and with the added pressure “to be joyful”.

“If you don’t have the ability to do that – such as having this massive Christmas meal with your household – then it often leaves people feeling inadequate or lonely,” she said.

She added that financial pressures can sometimes transformation people’s perceptions of the festive period.

Fiona Barnard, who runs the Life of a Crazy Mum blog agrees that Christmas “can be a tough period for people with mental health and financial issues”.

“More often than not, all children desire to do at Christmas is spend period with their household and their loved ones.

“Most of us work packed period, some of us are single parents or only view our children at weekend.

“So when it comes to Christmas it’s not about running around piling them packed of presents or slaving away in the kitchen for half the day, where they don’t view us.”

She added we should “bring it back to basics” of what Christmas is about.

“It’s about household. It’s about sharing period and sharing adore, as opposed to sharing pits packed of money that we don’t have.”