To feel sad that a £2 chocolate advent calendar is no longer enough?

[Ricekrispie22]

There are so many toy based advent calendars around these days and I feel they're just getting bigger and bigger. thetoptoys.blogspot.com/2018/09/toy-based-advent-calendars-sequel.html#more
I much preferred it when you could just get them a good old Cadbury choc calendar and that was enough. It's not like I need any more plastic tat in my house. Is it just me?

Oh God - put this in the Xmas section!

So buy them a £2 chocolate advent calendar and not the toy ones. My kids have a £2 chocolate advent calendar.

I still just buy them a chocolate advent calendar 🤷🏻‍♀️

.....and for the older crowd...why the need to buy a chocolate advent character...what’s wrong with the ones with the pictures 😉

Being sad seems a little dramatic.

Just buy a chocolate calendar, it’s fine.

?

My Mum used to say the same about the chocolate ones! We always had the ones with a wee picture but no chocolate.

But aye, I do agree it’s all getting a bit much.

When I was little we didn't even have a chocolate calendar, just a picture behind the window.
I spend enough money at Christmas without all these new 'traditions' (Christmas Eve box, toy advent calendars etc) thrown in too.

Do you also feel sad that paper advent calendar are not enough any more and people are buying chocolate ones for the spoilt children.

Not just you. I'm saddened by the commercialism of pretty much every event these days and how so much tat is sold. It seems as though whilst one sector of society is concerned about reducing consumerism, especially of single use plastic shite, going as far as trying to clean up the littered environment, there's a huge other sector that doesn't care at all.
Stuff like toy filled advent calendars are a great example. How long does it take before the child is bored of the items and they end up in the bin? And with the best will in the world, how much of this tat can realistically be given to charity shops to reuse? I feel as though we're swamped in tat.

£2 chocolate advent calendars are enough for my kids?

Explain to your kids why it is environmentally irresponsible to buy small plastic toys that won't really be played with. I refuse to buy Kinder Surprises for this reason and my kids understand why.

To be fair, Cadbury’s tastes like shite now

YANBU

Took me ages to find a picture one too. The chocolate ones have shit pics!

Some of us remember opening a little glittery window to be rewarded with a picture of a robin.....
We have refillable ones.

When I was a child we had one advent calendar between three (so got to open 8 doors each) and not a chocolate in sight. Things change. I’m eyeing up a Hotel chocolat one for myself this year.

You know you don’t HAVE to buy a toy advent calendar right? Just because they are available they aren’t compulsory 🙄

And whilst we're at it elf on the shelf Christmas boxes and changing all the cushions and duvet covers to Christmas themed ones can piss off too.

What? People change their cushion covers?

To be honest I feel the same way about the chocolate ones as you do about the toy ones!

To me, the 'good old' calendars are the paper & glitter picture ones. The chocolate ones are just about the chocolate, I might as well buy a packet of sweets and give them one every morning for all they care it came from a calendar. (i.e. they don't).

I did the chocolate calendars for one year only, realised they are rubbish and since then I find the paper picture ones online (because they are rarely sold in ordinary shops) and they LOVE those more than the chocolate ones. (and no, I don't knit lentils or give them a lump of coal and half a shilling for Christmas). They are plenty commercialised in lots of other ways but I get a kick out of the excitement they get from finding the right number window (a lot harder to spot on a detailed picture calendar) and seeing what picture they got that day.

Most kids just get chocolate calendars, mine certainly do.

I have four DC and I don't get then the toy ones because there's no fucking way I'm spending £25 each/£100 total on advent calendars but I do have momentary feelings about them missing out when it seems like all of their friends have them. Then I give my head a wobble and remind myself that there is no fucking way I'm spending £100 on advent calendars.

I hate Elf On The Shelf. The sentiment behind it is utter bullshit, the elf is a smug faced little bastard, and it brings out all the 'oh I'm soooooo witty and creative!' try-hards on FB and IG.

I also hate how overboard people seem to go for Christmas now. Department store in our nearest town has pre-bookable slots to see Santa, there were released at 11am last Monday and by 1pm were all gone. In August. Ditto Christmas events at local attractions like polar express rides and visit Santa's workshop type events.

Christmas Eve boxes, especially wooden personalised ones. Matching family pyjamas. Christmas jumper day at school (and if you don't have a Christmas jumper the rule is that you must wear uniform so it really singles out the kids whose parents can't afford it). Posting photos of huge piles of gifts on FB with the caption 'finished the wrapping!' or 'Santa visted!'.

I love the magic of Christmas and I love making it magic for my DC but I don't remember this level of mania over it all ten or twenty years ago.

I don't change my cushion covers I have a separate Christmas set

However I definitely don't buy the toy or cosmetic ones, it is OTT when they are about to have a load of gifts. I have wooden advent calendars that we refill with chocolate each year. It doesn't bother me that the bigger advent gifts are available but I can literally pick out those people who would buy them for their kids.

Wierdcatlady - I also shared a paper calendar between two growing up so we alternated the days we opened the doors.

People were more frugal in general then. It wouldn't have occurred to my mum to get us one each even though we could have afforded it. There just was little to none excess of anything, it was how people were then. My mum would have been shocked at the thought of special Christmas bedding, elf on the shelf, Christmas Eve hampers, leaving glitter and oats out for "Rudolph", more than one Christmas tree in the house, etc.

I mean not that those things are bad and in fact I'm sure we would have loved Christmas bedding if you could have got it in the 1970s BUT on the other hand, there just wasn't this pressure to have all the extra "things" that there is nowadays (and then photo it for social medi so all your friends know that you have these "things" and were the first to do something novelty).

We bought a toy one (playmobil I think) years ago and now we wheel it out every year skinflint.

I put the toys back inside behind the cardboard windows and they stay shut.

It's turned into a little tradition now, and the kids (now 8 & 10) are perfectly happy to pull out the familiar pieces one by one.

On 6 Jan it's packed away till the following December. They've not complained yet!

What's sad is that you're thinking about this on 2nd September, why would you do that?