to think the hard economic times are creating a nostigila for times gone by where money and ownership of certain goods wasn't the be all and end all?

[bytheMoonlight]

This thread got me thinking that the greed and need to own everything new, to throw out the out traditions and modernise may be over.

That the hard times have made us hark back to 'simpler' times when life seemed more about fun created from just being together than from the expensive gifts we received or the pounds we spent decorating our houses.

AIBU to think these tough times may make us less materialistic?

I think that they do, yes.

Example: For Christmas I've bought quite a bit, but I've also gone and bought fabric from a haberdashery and made everyone personalized stockings to hang up. I've also filled them with little bits and bobs from Hawkins Bazaar. I think they look absolutely beautiful and they are going to end up lasting a lot longer than just some tatty one from the pound shop.

I'm on the cusp of spanking 44 whole English pounds on two of these in the name of traditional decoration. My reasoning is their timeless beauty will enhance the yuletide aesthetic chez 'Pru for decades to come. I may even bequeath them to the Prulets.

Does that count?

YABU to suggest that for people nowadays "money and ownership of certain goods" is "the be all and end all"

i wish they would. i yearn for the more simple times, they may not have been easier generally, but just more peaceful somehow.

I don't think they were all that more simple times - it might just be that you were a child caught up in the magic of Christmas and didn't notice it wasn't the most afluent Christmas, just that you enjoyed it. You might have felt it was peaceful, but didn't notice parents saving through the year, madly trying to buy gifts (with shorter opening times and no internet shopping!), wrap them and hide without you finding them.

Perhaps you should take heart from that because your DCs won't notice if it's not perfect - only you. It's not the gifts (that your parents in all probablity struggled to pay for) you remember, but the 'fun from being together'.

But then, I don't know anyone who buys whole new Christmas decorations every year, throwing out earlier colour schemes - do'nt normal people just buy a few new ones each year to replace any that got broken the year before, but generally get the same box down yearly?

I have recently regained access to UK TV - the commercial channels and was SHOCKED at the advertising. On Belgian tv - the ads are for healthy yogurt, soup and shampoo. Itv seems to be all sofas (interest free credit), tvs, phones and spending vast amounts of money on Xmas that you probably don't have. Xmas here is about toys for children and eating (lots).

I actually WANT a simple life - grow veg/keep chickens etc. I hope we will get such when dh retires.....

I LOVED Christmas as a child. We got lots of handmade stuff - my grandad made dollshouses, cribs etc in his shed. My nan knitted doll's clothes. I lots of Aunties so there was always a wealth of cheap stuff - loads to unwrap but mainly selection boxes, sindy clothes, hair bobbles and the like. But the whole family got together over Xmas Day/Boxing Day. I remember Snow Balls and James Bond films and just the excitement of it all.

Dd definitely does better on a material level - but I fear the magic is missing.

Portofino - but as a child, I remember the run up to christmas there being tonnes of adverts for 'sofa for christmas' - then as soon as it was christmas day, all the films we'd videoed (no TV watching in our house on Christmas day!) were all about sofa sales in the new year...

The magic is the bit I worry I won't be able to do for DS. (He's 2 this year, so wasn't an issue last year).

Each year each DC chooses one tree decoration to add to our small collection.

the other thing I'm going to try to do, is to make Christmas just be Christmas - my parents only put up the tree on the day we broke up from school, it was properly christmas, the tree wasn't up for long, there wasn't Christmas 'treat food' available throughout December, it really was restricted to the school holidays. It made it feel much more like Christmas, whereas friends who's parents put up the decorations a the start of December seemed to not have the same 'magic' because they had time to get used to it, IYSWIM.

Must make effort to hold off decoration until the weekend before...

Lydia - I am guessing I am older than you

Wrong thread!

In Belgium the kids get there "big" pressies on St Nicolas - which is 6th December. We put the tree up for that. Though this year we are going back to UK for Xmas, so I told dd that St Nicolas is mainly for little children and that Father Christmas sorts the bigger ones....

their

Yanbu. There is something about "make-do-and-mend" that is far more soul-satisfying than just buying it at the supermarket.

I have sensed no such rosy nostalgia.

stealth, I'm not sure if your post was ironic. I'm struggling to see the thrift there. I just use big hockey socks year after year. Thrifty without even knowing it.

We love Christmas but we don't go silly. Cards, tree, traditional food, sensible presents and that's about it. The only thing we tend to have that I didn't as a child are scented candles - does anyone remember the sets of brass angels with four small white candles underneath which when lit made the angels rotate and bells tinkled.

Some of our decorations are special - my grandma's fairy for the top of the tree - the children's baubles with the names on, the decorations that they were allowed to chose in John Lewis one year and took ages doing so, ds's first handmade cardboard decoration from school, the baked glittery heart decorations that dd made. It's all a bit soppy really. And thank you thread for reminding me the Christmas tree lights bombed out last year and must buy new ones.