To think Christmas has descended into a pile of landfill?

MIL went mad in Shein for the kids again but at least we insist on leaving it at hers now.

Oh and everyone i know buys the brown recycled & recyclable paper and uses brown tape or ribbon to secure it.

We definitely don't waste food either. We buy what we use and it will all get eaten.

Lego/duplo are not plastic tat. My own lego is still in perfect condition & being played with by my kids, i expect it to last many more years. I'd say its lasted slightly better than the brio track of similar vintage - which has held up, but not without some splits/broken ends.

Not everyone is buying all this crap!! My kids have christmas pjs that are the same quality as their usual ones, coming from places like next, boden or m&s. They are worn all winter & passed down to siblings.

We don't buy plastic tat, or low quality character themed toys. In their stockings my kids had quite traditional stuff - bananagrams game, socks, book, chocolate orange, candy canes, a skipping rope, a card game etc. I don't actually know that many people buying the plastic tat, i think its just very visible on supermarket shelves.

No. It is SINGLE USE or poor quality plastic which is the issue.

Lego is well-made and lasts forever. It is not overly-packaged. There is a thriving second hand market for complete sets, or bricks sold by weight. Once your child has finished with their Lego they can easily sell it and the same pieces of Lego will go on for decades.

There is really no comparison with a poorly-made plastic toy which cannot be resold and which will be in landfill by Easter.

Certainly a mounting thought about the pressures of Christmas. On this thread a PP has suggested a ‘Reclaim Christmas’ campaign. (page 2).

How amazing would that be, back to basics, simple, local quality, sharing time and events.

www.mumsnet.com/talk/am_i_being_unreasonable/5465302-over-stimulation-or-christmas-ruined-by-overcommercialised-high-expectation-december?page=2&reply=149421454

Recycling is all well and good. We do it too, this year Aldi had some very good (and cheap) wrapping paper which was basically brown paper printed with festive designs, fully recyclable. There is no excuse for not doing it, especially in most areas it just means sticking it in a separate bin.

However. Recycle only comes after reduce and reuse. It's pointless to buy all the tat and overconsume everything because you plan to recycle it later. Or buy things you know are single use that you cannot reuse.

We don't really have food waste - we do buy more than usual but there is space in the freezer and it will all get used up. Same with toiletries.

@SoftBalletShoes yes Lego is plastic but my Lego won’t be going into land fill any time soon
I’m 61 and still have my childhood Lego which I will be sharing with my grandchild soon along with all the collectors sets in the future

I bought more chocolate in the sales to see me through but I do eat quite a bit of chocolate every day and it is expensive to buy at full price now so hopefully I should be good for a while. I could never have too much chocolate.

Plastic yes, but we are still using the lego collected 25 years ago (and longer as I was given a huge box second hand).

We always get the ‘lego box’ (and 25 year old Brio) out for visiting children to play with.

I agree with you OP. Christmas seems to be full of expensive, wasteful rituals that people can't bear to let go of.

I think social media has a lot to answer for, the number of MNers asking if they’d bought enough presents for their DCs, one was in a state because some nonentity on Instagram had over 100 presents for each dc. WTF is going on in some peoples minds?
It’s obscene, teaches children that we have a throw away, I-want-everything-now society that knows the value of absolutely nothing.
Yes, I’m old and grumpy but at least I recognise when enough is enough.

No tatt here. Fortunately!

My adult DC’s decided on quality over quantity and were happy with one or two British made items of clothing and handcrafted treats from our local independents.
One of the patterned shirts was beautiful, pattern matched large check, gorgeous natural fabric. Made about 40 miles from us.

On the other hand I have family members where photos showed the piles of presents were horrific.

Look at the very people on here! It’s not just instagram. A post the other day of a single mother who bought 16!!! Gifts and was worried that it wasn’t enough. The shame starts here.

It’s been this way for years. I was sick of it 10yrs ago. I don’t partake in it – no cards, no crackers, fake tree, no excess food, only do presents for my DH, kids and mum. We do have lots of other sustainable Christmas joy.

🥺

I receive a lot of them because of the nature of my job but yes, I also exchange gifts with extended family. We tend to give gift vouchers for restaurants or experiences but it’s that thing of “having something to open” that I think drives them to also give chocolates or gift sets. I’ll broach the subject of scaling back next year.

I attended a Carbon Literacy course for work just before Christmas.
There were four areas looked at in detail..
Travel
Homes
Stuff
Food
The biggest contributor to climate change is food. And wasting food is the biggest part of that. If everyone stopped food waste it would make a massive difference.
So all those food gifts are not necc the answer. I filled a carrier bag with food gifts we had been given as a family which far exceeded our ability to eat and they are going to the Foodbank, but it would have been better if everyone had not bought them for me/us, as I repeatedly ask for.
Stuff is also a massive issue. Think before I buy anything. That is what I took away from the course.
(As well as a constant feeling of impending doom, which feels closer and closer, landfill is the least of human kind's worries).

I am much more concious of the things I am buying than I used to be, but I have always hated plastic tat.

For my young DGC I bought a European made wooden toy that should last for many years, a pure wool item of clothing and a book each. The presents are more expensive because they are sustainable, but they get less stuff and the items will last longer and can be passed on rather than adding to landfill. I really didn't spend a lot of money on these items, just spent my time looking for them rather than buying what's in the more obvious shops.

For most other people I either buy tickets to events or food items I know they will enjoy. I have allergies so often end up re-gifting food items I have been given.

I usually wrap most things in plain brown paper that I decorate myself so it can be recycled or in reusable paper gift bags or boxes with a bit of tissue paper. I have now cut out Christmas cards too.

We had a family Christmas with me hosting and others bringing contribuitions. The one thing I was disappointed with was the Christmas crackers (donated by a family member) as they were just tat that got thrown away as soon as the meal was over.

It's the Halloween tat that now merges seamlessly with the Christmas tat....it's constant & depressing thqt so many people buy into it. And they must - because the retailers wouldn't do it otherwise. Also one house in our street that filled their garden with halloween crap only took half of it down, the rest of it being blown up and down the street....
Any seen any easter eggs/plastic rabbits etc yet? That'll be next.

Every single plastic thing is made by someone who is paid to make it. They take that money and use it to feed a family just like yours. That is economics!
There are far too many of us and we are destroying the planet, but are you going to choose who gets fed and who doesn’t?
This stopped being a simple problem of “ Just don’t buy the tat” many, many years ago, unfortunately!

We spend money on going out. My kids are teens so part of the present was tickets to a show that we’re all going to over the period, invitation to brunch out at a place nearby place and money. Actual gifts were money with a few bits.
when they were younger, they were happy with just a few things.

I tend to buy food/drink so it’s not going to waste.
For my young adult kids this year I filled their stockings with toiletries that they already use ( DS was very happy with this as he’s between jobs and low on money), and only bought stuff I know they wanted or would use.

My parents did this to the extreme and just stopped gifting anything as soon people reach 18. Definitely no waste or excess landfill from their home.

It’s really disgusting how much tat we produce and throw away. Complete sin, we should be so ashamed as humans what we are doing to the world.