To think Christmas has descended into a pile of landfill?

Oh and if you actually care about the landfill element of Christmas gifts- it’s not the gifts or the clothes that are the problem. It’s the packaging.

We filled two bin bags not with wrapping paper, but with the packaging from gifts. The boxes with inserts gifts come in, the packaging from online orders. There’s so much packaging that could be removed.

Yep, new pjs on Christmas Eve, matching or not, continue to be worn through winter.

this is yet another snobby thread about how poorer people shop and the perceived low quality gifts given. @TheLostMonopolyTopHatwould not enjoy any plastic items so presume they are put in the bin shortly afterwards.

I’ve just bought some fat quarters of Christmas fabric for wrapping gifts next year but if course you can only do this if you’re sure that the recipient is going to reuse them.

That’s the most ridiculous excuse I’ve ever seen for being too lazy to recycle!

!

Lego's just as bad as any other plastic though, isn't it?

I get it. BUT.

I collect greenery and have two real trees put decorations on I've had for many years. Make all my food. Buy other food locally and sustainably. I had a few presents, a pair of cashmere gloves from recyclable sources, a wool blanket, a book, some chocolate. That's nice. We had crackers that were entirely recyclable, they had games in that were fun.

They'll be no waste here.

EXACTLY!

For Christmas this year I gave everyone dolls made out of clothes pegs, and they were happy and grateful for it! 🤣

Why are you so sure that they don't wear the pyjamas for the whole winter and for many winters besides? I've had winter pyjamas that I've worn constantly for 20 years, except in summer.

I'm finding all these assumptions and judgements on this thread very sniffy and virtue-signalling. "Facile" when you're just assuming that they only have the pjs for one Christmas Eve!

Thing is our whole economy relies on people consuming. That’s what capitalism is. We need a wholesale change as we can’t go on like this but what’s the alternative system?

That seems an unnecessarily negative outlook. How do you know that these things won't be used, loved, and passed on? One man's tat is another man's treasure.

I think people are much more conscious of being a responsible consumer than they used to be. Plus we now have the secondary market through things like eBay. And many things are recycled. There are also more biodegradable plastics now.

Anyway, even if none of these things were true, there's nothing you can do about it, so no point thinking about it if it brings you down.

ETA: You say that "very few" people seem to stop and think, and that they buy things and then chuck them away. You have no way of knowing this at all, it's just negative gloom-and-doom thinking.

I made the vast majority of my presents this year - all edibles such as cranberry sauce, tomato chutney etc in recycled glass jars. Went down really well with friends and family and I enjoyed making in all!!

My family has never really done this; just a few small/consumable items and we often reuse paper/gift bags etc. I don't really understand the whole panic buying madness if I'm honest, I just stay far away from the shops November onwards. I'm still wondering who the people are who buy all new decorations every year though because no-one ever admits to this 😆

Not in our house. We use the much hated poem and buy as ethically as possible. Most gifts for DC over the years have been second-hand.

Because it’s a special occasion and we enjoy giving/receiving presents? DP bought me jewellery and I bought him a perfume and an ‘experience’ gift. There was no “waste”.

I'm with you, OP. ❤️

I can no longer stand the kind of stuff that's on sale that is geared towards people wondering what to get for x person, because they've got to get "something".

It all seems such a pointless waste because you know the crap is just going to languish in the back of a cupboard. Or get regifted if the recipient also feels the need to give presents.

For years now I've avoided cards which have wrapped presents on them because I hate that it's about spending money on mindless buying. I've even stopped buying wrapping paper, and either wrap things in the brown paper that comes in parcels, saved up over time, or I put things in pillowcases.

This year was mostly gift free, both giving and receiving, and it was so much less stressful!

We experienced it differently. Three adult home, we go a bit crazy at Christmas, but only within the limits of our disposable incomes.

As we were opening presents, we had two bags for (one for general bin, one for recyclable bin) rubbish and another pile for cardboard (to take to the tip).

this year we had half a small rubbish bag bound for land fill (mainly the wrapping paper from presents others bought us) and managed to squeeze our recyclable stuffing into one large black bag. And a load of cardboard that went to the recyclable tip.

I commented about how firms seem to have stopped using that polystyrene stuff to pack things more secure but now seem to use cardboard.

I know I cannot guarantee that things we recycle will not go into landfill, but we try.

maybe the next step for us is to find out what our council does with our recycling, or rather, I suppose, what the business our council contracts with, does with our recycling.

I bought my dc xmas pjs 2 yrs ago & they are still using them. And yes we are a tall family so my dc have grown but I bought them too big. I don’t understand why every Christmas new ones are needed.

I did buy some gold baubles from the Range but that’s because I dropped my old ones which happened to be glass & didn’t want to spend a lot on new glass ones.

This Christmas i decided not to get a load of tat. And also bought secondhand books (so much cheaper) my children have additional needs and you can get secondhand equipment much cheaper than new and often in perfect condition.

They had things they wanted, things they needed. My wider family also decided on less tat too. It worked really well.

I agree, there is so much wastage it's actually disgusting. We try in our house to minimise it but we are probably also responsible for more than we'd like.

I try and buy less and keep longer in terms of clothes and housing stuff. I am awful for food wastage though.

I agree with a lot of your points but who is only wearing Christmas pyjamas for one night? Mine get a new pair at the beginning of December and then wear them until they don’t fit any more. They still wear the ones from 2 christmas’ ago.

You must get loads of presents to have all those, do you not tell people you don't want them, do you buy gifts for other people, do people that buy you these gifts get a gift from you. We don't really have gifting in our house, DS gets money so he can buy what he wants and that's about it.

This year and last Christmas I found it really difficult to go shopping for presents. The sheer amount of stuff in the shops combined with the fact DC didn't need a lot made it hard to buy anything. I tried to keep the volume of waste and tat to a minimum, recycle what I can.

It juat feels like a never ending cycle of consumerism. I don't want to be part of it. I certainly don't want anyone to buy me things for the sake of it.

I just want time with my family and time on my own. I don't want it in the form of a themed bubble bath set with comedy accessories etc etc.

Not if you buy things they actually want/need. It's nice to buy gifts for people you love. The gifts don't have to be tat or expensive.

Yes, it's bad that so much plastic tat is produced, but I don't see what these endless halo-polishing, hand-wringing threads bemoaning the shopping habits of 'poor, stupid people' actually achieve, apart from allowing OPs to wallow in a sense of moral superiority disguised as woe.