When it comes to festive spending, it’s grandparents who are doing the splashing out on presents and entertaining, a new survey has revealed.

The average grandparent spends nearly £600 during the festive season, with 6.5 million grandparents also hosting Christmas dinner, according to insurer Norwich Union.

Generous grandparents are digging deep into their pockets this Christmas with grandchildren being the main benefactors, and it seems the more grandchildren there are, the merrier.

Those with eight grandchildren spend £65 a head on the latest must-have toys and games at Christmas, as well as going well above the average overall spend, splurging an average total of just under £720 treating friends and family to all the trimmings.

And it’s not just at Christmas that grandparents spoil their grandchildren:

• Four out of 10 (39%) admit to spoiling them all year round.
• On average they spend £200 on each one over the course of the year.
• One in 10 (9%) also regularly send their grandchildren money throughout the year.

But it’s the middle generation who lose out with 41% of grandparents admitting spending more on their grandchildren than on their children.

Daren Carter, sales and marketing director at Norwich Union Personal Finance, said: "They say that Christmas is a time for giving and our grandparents seem to have embraced that sentiment."

"The festive season is a great time to get family and friends together and our research shows that it is the older generation who are maintaining this tradition with less than a quarter (24%) being entertained by other people over the Christmas period."

However, all this generosity does come at a cost. A third of grandparents (34%) confess to buying things for their grandchildren even when they can’t afford to do so.

Those grandparents who do this more often are spending more than the average on their grandkids at Christmas - £72 per head compared to £58.

"Considering that the average weekly income of almost a third (31%) of grandparents is less than £300 a week per household, it may be that this kindness isn’t sustainable," said Daren.