to dislike 'Look how many presents my children have' posts?

[LooptheL00p]

I've just seen the first one of the year pop up on Facebook, a picture of a living room absolutely full of toys, not even wrapped yet, captioned 'How am I going to wrap all of this?!'. I feel a (possibly unreasonable) amount of disdain towards these pictures!
I don't really mind how many presents people buy for their children, or if the pictures are more about the pretty wrapping/Christmas magic. But 'Look how much I've bought'?! It just seems common and somewhat of a pointless competition of oneupmanship to post online 🙄. Am I crazy or does this irritate others as well?

horatio I do think you're right about that.
And honesty I don't judge (although it may have sounded that way!), just voicing anonymously the internal discomfort I sometimes feel.
Having said that, plenty of well-off people in SA who will flaunt their wealth in the face of extreme poverty and really they have far less excuse!

I must admit I don't get how people can stick their heads in the sand, spend thousands on their kids and not even do a fucking shoebox for those less fortunate.

We did 20 shoeboxes for the appeal this year. Cost us about £50 in total and it was something anyone can do - you can buy a pack of 20 toothbrushes for £2, 20 writing pads for £4, lots of little bags of sweets for £2, 20 hat and scarf sets for £1 each, 50 pens for £1, 10 face cloths for £2, and all sorts of little toys.

Everybody should be made to do one. I'm sure your kids wouldn't mind going without a DVD or a book if it meant helping a child who has nothing at all.

Yes i dislike it very much. I am relieved that I was not on facebook and this was not a 'thing' when my DC were small.

I'm admiring SelfCleaningVagina's username.

demon

That's true. I'm originally from a country where people are on average more financially secure than in the U.K.

So, as crazy as this sounds, but for me the UK was sometimes a bit of a shock 😳🙈

We just donate to local charities every Christmas. (Not just on Christmas, btw).

I hope it helps. And I bought my mother this year a rain forest. I mean, it's via a nature preservation society, so, I didn't really buy it for her. But she gets some kind of deed etc.

That's what we tend to do on Christmas.

Not a whole rain forest.... eeep!

Just reread my comment 😅🙈

MrsMattBomer we used to do the shoe box too until I realised that the children had to either receive a religious pamphlet or attended a religious service / talk. I could not get behind that at all. Are there shoebox appeals that don't involve any type of religion?

I am struggling with it all this year TBH.

The news I am seeing from Aleppo is just taking my Xmas spirit and while I will enjoy Xmas I won't be over indulging DS. So many children who cannot even take tomorrow for granted.

lead

But if they get something good for that?

I mean, maybe they'll use the pahmplet to... idk. There's certainly something one could do with it, right? Fire? Toilet? Idk.

Everybody should be made to do one

Everybody rightly has a choice on what and when (and if) they give to charity. Otherwise, it's a tax, and we all know how these go down, even if you show tax payers how their money can help other with benefits and social housing.

Good for you for doing shoeboxes, but we all have our priorities.

Thank you MusuamofCurry

I admit to being a bit gobsmacked that it wasn't already taken when I thought of it.

I screwed your name up good there didn't I?

Even setting aside the general evangelist purpose of them, the shoebox appeals are incredibly inefficient. You would do much more good donating the money to a charity than filling a shoebox with heavy toiletries and cheap toys and having it shipped abroad.

It annoys me when people insist that everyone must do what they do and particularly when the thing they are insisting everyone must do is controversial at best.

Bless you horatio you made me smile at the present of a whole rain forest... now that would be some Facebook boast!
Interesting that you find the UK more commercialised comparatively as well.

I take the point about shipping shoe boxes. The appeal I support is local in Southern Africa with the donors dropping off at collection points themselves so a bit less wasteful.

Ultimately it's shit that some people have so little that they have to rely on the charity of others that have so (too?) much, but in the here and now who could begrudge them that bit of joy.

Yes, I agree, Milady the whole shoebox premise is a cumbersome and inefficient one. However I felt when mine were younger that them gathering the items and putting it together directly was a decent tangible exercise in the idea and reality that other children were much much less fortunate than them. The tangibility of it drove it home to my kids.

That made the whole exercise somewhat selfish on my part but it did have some effect on my DCs.

We make donations - both monetary and time - to charity. But we don't brag about it on Facebook.

Giving money to the DEC or a well established charity like Oxfam or Save the Children is a FAR more efficient use of your money. And you can guarantee that the Oxfam worker in a refugee camp isn't making Muslim children attend bible classes or prayer meetings to get their warm clothes and food.

Apologies. Our shoeboxes weren't for abroad, they were for kids in the local area and ran by a local charity that isn't religious. There are plenty of those around. Those are the ones where I think people should do at least one - you see those kids every day and that box of cheap stuff could really make their christmas.

this is just about people who don't 'know' how to behave. Rich or poor or whatever class.
It is easy to sneer but conspicuous consumption affects lots of people. It is just a not so stealth way of saying I've done ok.
I do like a stingy old school Brit looking down on everyone about this though. Very entertaining.
Love the words vulgarity and crass too!

Did anyone see in the papers Rio Ferdinand donated 500,000 worth of toys to children in Manchester?

That made me feel all fuzzy. Even though I may go slightly OTT with the DC I do still donate to certain charity's. I just don't announce it.

I did - I found that I had something in my eye soon after.

It was a huuuuuuuuge pile of toys, for kids who might not get one this Christmas otherwise.

toast

Ah, thanks ;) that would be a very grand Christmas gift.

'Here mummy. I bought you the pacific temperate rainforest/validvian rainforest... do you Iike your present?'

I actually meant I was kind of shocked by the amount of open poverty in the UK (council estates, so many homeless people...)

But yes, also by the amount of gifts some of my British colleagues seem to buy.

I do like the idea of the Christmas boxes for local charities (currently we just donate money) when DD is a bit older (this will be her first Christmas! And I wish she loved tinsel. Because she seems to be fascinated by candles 🙈🙈) Simply to make it obvious that she's in a very privileged situation...

The UK is a funny place. What is wrong with celebrating your success and sharing it , or even bragging about it because you are so proud of yourself? Why can't you be happy to see that a parent is proud of what they've got for their children?

15/12/2016 13:36 SoupDragon

Ah.... watching for this post is like watching for the first cuckoo of spring.

:o

spice

Nothing wrong with it.

But for somebody that grew up with one or two gifts from the parents, one from the grandparents etc seeing the amount some of my colleagues buy has made me go... . Not necessarily in a bad way, it's just different.

And I think most people on this thread agree that they primarily dislike the facebook 'bragging'.

fb is for arseholes who like to brag, end of