To think consumerism is spiralling out of control??

[Notcontent]

Just thinking about this tonight, as it’s Halloween and it seems bigger than ever before, with more decorations and more people buying sweets and stuff in general. The same at Easter this year - there was so much Easter related stuff for sale. People are also buying huge quantities of what is literally disposable fashion - clothes that are only worn once and then thrown out.

How did this happen?

@ProfessorMoody - I don’t particularly care about how you spend your money, or what your family traditions are. That’s up to you.

What I do care about is social media and retailers pressing these totally unnecessary trends on people during a time where a lot of families are already feeling the pressure financially, all in the interests of pushing more and more disposable tat.

Your family might have been doing boxes for forty years but it wasn't widespread (at least here) until there was a sudden ballooning of people asking on local groups where they could get boxes made (and then posting pictures of their kids opening them, obviously) last year. That's come from somewhere. What was once a nice tradition for some families has turned into another thing to keep up with the Joneses.

Never heard of Christmas eve box before joining MN,still refuse to do them though

Yes, I do agree with you there, Penny. We try and be as environmentally conscious as we can, and plastic tat etc. marketed as must-haves is abhorrent.

However, some things aren't what they seem. I have a set of Christmas bedding that I use for a week in December and I've had it for over ten years. Our Christmas jumpers are worn every year. I have special china for December but again, it'll last a lifetime - some of these things aren't throwaway or single use.

I’ve insisted this year that we’re not doing anything Christmassy until 1st December, and every time we see Christmas stuff we shout ‘my eyes, my eyes’ and cover our faces. It’s become something of a game for Ds’s 6 and 3- but there’s Christmas stuff everywhere and the game is wearing thin....

I agree about the Internet- but what I mean is we can’t have both full bustling towns and not be peddling all the stuff. Our local town has 3 poundshops, but not a butcher or a greengrocer (which I would love because everything in the supermarket veg section is wrapped in plastic!!!

We have a Halloween bag .

I also agree my ds’s Christmas duvet is used for about 3 weeks a year but has been used for the past 4 years,

In a supermarket today and it was like Christmas Eve. People swarming around the piles of sweets, tiny children smashing each other with plastic broomsticks, rails and rails of nylon costumes that will all be reduced tomorrow, plastic pumpkin earrings, plastic pumpkin buckets to put crappy sweets in. It's all a distraction and a financial burden on people who can't afford it but want to fit in. Not to mention the further racks of hundreds of vile tacky Christmas jumpers. People spend £20 on a jumper to wear for the NSPCC Day and donate £1 to charity. It all ends up in landfill and we repeat the process every year. We're being conned by big business and our craving for attention on social media. I fear for the future.

I just learned from another thread that "push presents" (jewellery that a man buys his partner after she gives birth) are now officially a thing. I know, I know, this sort of thing is an inevitable side effect of capitalism. But it's sad that society has become so materialistic.

TheCraicDealer
I think you're right. It's shops and supermarkets selling £2 tat that manage to survive. Nicer shops are the ones that are struggling (probably because the culture of buy it now means buy it cheap. There's a focus on fast spending, fast consuming, get it now over think about parting with your cash, save up for something).

Since seeing Stacey Dooley' s fashion documentary I'm starting to think fast fashion and cheap tat go hand in hand offering large profits for some for destroying the planet.
For £10 in town I could have got 2 kids worth of Halloween accessories, cheap face paints, a couple of plastic Halloween buckets, cheap pumpkin lights for the porch, some plastic decorations (spiders, bats and shit).

YY Dayswithay - my mum was saying today that she “needed” to get a new Christmas jumper as she worn her current one for her work’s Christmas Jumper Day for the last 3 years in a row.

I didn’t even know where to start with that insanity. So something worn approximately THREE TIMES is now done and in need of replacing?!

It’s just indicative of 30 years + of aggressive festive marketing

Festivals are as commercial as you want them to be. If you don't want to buy stuff don't.

This.

We have a Halloween box. I've compiled it from car boot sales over the past 15 years. Comes down once a year and there's great excitement as it's unpacked and things are remembered

And also this. I didn't buy a thing this year. DS was delighted to see the Halloween tat come out again.

I can't get worked up about Christmas Eve boxes. They're all about mood setting for Christmas Day. I'd be getting the kids new pjs anyway and I'd never going to miss an opportunity to get them more books.

I hadn't heard about the Christmas box thing until a few years ago. Now the well off, competitive sets of other DGPs are flogging themselves daft trying to out do each other with them. So now each child has two each. The presents they give are insane as well. It's not just young parents who are mad with it all.
I give a selection box, a toy and a book about something they are interested in. They are just as happy. I can't afford to buy any more.

Though I heartily agree about Christmas jumpers. Theyre just unnecessary waste.

I have to agree with most of this.
My pet hate is Christmas jumper day.
I borrowed one last year, wore it for approximately 2 minutes until I could stand the itching no longer.
Then took it off. They are not my cup of tea and I refuse to spend money on something truly awful to wear. Yes there probably are better quality ones but I don't want to waste that amount of money.

Buying plastic tat from Asda for Halloween/Christmas is the new opium for the masses.

It’s not a great point in time for ordinary people, and it doesn’t look like it’s getting better any moment soon.

People are just spunking whatever spare cash they do have on enjoying themselves.

If we are talking about Christmas, what about advent calendars? Yet another example. There was someone on mumsnet in the last few weeks who wanted to make her dd a “beauty” themed advent calendar - she was getting lots of advice on where to buy lots of cheap stuff that no one needs or wants - yes, another 25 bits of plastic for landfill in January...

The tat and boxes are about creating a celebration rather than a genuine celebration. It’s because many people no longer link the joy of Christmas with the joy of giving (as opposed to receiving). It’s about using tat. excess and gluttony to replace genuine celebration. People trying to artificially create something to celebrate. Sad reflection of the world we live in and which we are now destroying with our greed.
Nobody had birthday eve boxes, do they? Birthdays are considered a celebration in their own right.
In my book, simple is preferable. Nice meals and celebration with friends and family. Giving to those less fortunate. Recognition of the reason we have a Christmas Day. Walks and roaring fires; drinks with neighbours; opening (useful and simple) stockings, making fresh wreaths, creating Christingles to scent and decorate the fireplace and collecting greenery for decorating the house. Avoiding plastic tat at all costs as it adds nothing. Placing baby Jesus in the stable is still a much fought over job on Christmas morning and gives as much pleasure as a multicoloured flashing snowman. Our nativity set has lasted years and years and will be passed on through the generations.... I suspect the flashing snowman will be in landfill by the end of January.

To be fair I've only seen the Christmas Eve box thing on the internet. I know nobody that does it in real life.

I have bought my dcs Christmas Eve boxes, personalised ones. I see what people are saying about why a new pair of pjs and sweets needs to be presented in a box. But the things my dcs get are from the elves, I wanted it to be special and a special memory for my dcs. I want them to have the box for years and hopefully for it to be a memory for them when adults. I think it's ok to buy a Christmas Eve box if it's going to be used again and again for 10 years plus. I think that's much better than buying 1 use plastic rubbish that gets chucked.

I agree, I don't see the point in buying new bedding, tableware and Christmas themed pjs just for one day of the year. Can't believe people actually do this.

And there was I thinking we'd reached 'peak stuff' .

www.independent.co.uk/news/business/analysis-and-features/peak-stuff-is-consumerism-running-out-of-steam-a6905886.html

I’ve made my eldest daughter an advent calendar for their home. They didn’t want a chocolate filled secular box that is thrown away so I’ve made one using little wooden boxes (olive wood from the Holy Land) and filled with small presents such as tiny hand soaps, their own miniature nativity figures and little individual glass tree baubles. Hopefully everything will be used or form the start of their family Christmas decoration box. The calendar can be reused for many, many years. We still cherish the one that was made for us when the children were tiny.

The bottom line is things are cheap.
Made from cheap plastic in places where labour is cheap, sailed around the world on a massive cargo ships with a handful of crew so cheap to ship.
Sold cheaply, stack it high, sell it cheap.

People are encouraged by the low cost. But even when you try to buy 'quality' often the quality is no different the only difference is the label.

Yes OP about the advent calendars!!!

Remember when an advent calendar was 25 mini chocolates lurking behind a flimsy cardboard door? Not anymore!

I was in Debenhams yesterday and they had huuuuge boxes which turned out to be “advent calendars”, but instead of being full of cheap chocolate, behind each door was a scented candle or a notebook or some other bit of unneeded crap. Remember the Zoella version from Boots last year? £50 for about a tenners worth of stuff from the Pound Shop.

I remember when advent calendars had a holy picture behind each door.

To be fair I was tempted by a cheese advent calendar until I learnt you had to store it in the fridge. Aye- "no room for the turkey love, my advent calendar's in there".