With 14 children, and eight grandchildren so far, Christmas is a big, busy affair for the McFadyen family of central-west New South Wales.

There are presents to buy for everyone — within a monetary limit, organising accommodation on their farm near Peak Hill and working out how to feed a crowd in summer temperatures that regularly reach around 40 degrees Celsius.

"We find that cooking just spoils it for everybody so we try to do barbeques and cold hams and things like that which still can be made special," matriarch Robbie McFadyen explained.

Any celebration involves a lot of logistics for such a large family, but Mrs McFadyen and her husband, Phil, would not have it any other way.

Why a big family?

The McFadyens have eight boys and six girls aged between seven and 31 years but Mr McFadyen said they did not initially plan to have such a big family.

"We were going to have four children, which is the same size as what family I had, but then we were convinced by God to let Him choose the size of our family," Mr McFadyen said.

"We love children, we loved a large family [and] we loved everything about family and just didn't see any reason to stop," Mrs McFadyen added.

She said not everyone understood.

"It's amazing how, when you have a large family, you get everyone's opinion on all sorts of things that they would never think of saying if you didn't have a large family," she said.

"It used to really annoy me [but] I guess, because I'm at the other end of it, I can see the advantages and that sort of thing doesn't bother me much."

The McFadyen family often has 50 or so people for their Christmas gatherings such as this recent one in a central-west park. ( Supplied: Angela Slade )

The logistics of large family

The McFadyens moved from Blacktown in Sydney to the Peak Hill district 12 years ago where they now run a farm and Mr McFadyen also paints miniature war figurines.

They bought a 12-seater van but it still was not big enough for the 11 children they had at the time and they had to add an extra seat.

Mrs McFadyen said it created the "nightmare" of having to get a new class of drivers' licence, which both parents failed the first time.

When asked how they managed their weekly grocery bill, she said they bought a lot in bulk and supplemented their diet with animal and vegetable products from their farm.

"We just don't have a lot of luxury items by today's terms, but we also like to eat healthily so we don't miss those kinds of things," Mrs McFadyen said.

All but two of their children have or continue to be home-schooled which their teacher-mother said was the easiest and best option.

"When I did have children at school, I found it very stressful," she said.

"Everything from a dozen lunches to going and helping with reading in the classroom, parent teacher interviews [and] driving them to and from school.

"All of that was just taking up so much time that I thought if I had them at home, I'd have more time with them and we'd get to have a lot more fun together and that's how it's turned out."

Not a perfect family

The McFadyens are quick to point out they are not perfect.

Mrs McFadyen said she was "no superwoman" and sometimes shouted at her children.

Her husband said people such as the Duggars, whose American reality television series was cancelled earlier this year after revelations of child abuse, did not give the best portrayal of large families.

"We tried to shy away from that side of it because we don't project ourselves as being perfect and if you do project yourself as being perfect, then you set yourself up to fall," he said.

The couple both said they loved having lots of people around and the joy of always having someone to talk to, but Mr McFadyen said that had a flipside.

"As you get older, noise becomes a factor and we try to enforce the one person speaking at a time rule, which is very hard," he said.

Some of the younger members of the McFadyen family including seven-year-olds, Josiah (left) and his nephew, Gabriel. ( ABC Central West: Melanie Pearce )

Child's perspective of being in a large family

At 17, Isabella McFadyen is currently the second eldest of the children still living at home, where she shares a bedroom with three siblings.

She said that can be hard along with the "challenging" babysitting she does when her parents go out and the friction caused by lots of different personalities.

"Everyone knows how to push your buttons," she laughed.

However she was all smiles when talking about the positives.

"It's awesome having so many siblings to play with all the time," she said.