To find it really distasteful to take photos of your children’s gifts?

[StarfishSandwich]

I’ve noticed a trend on Facebook for mums to post photos the night before their child’s birthday of a big pile of wrapped up gifts. Or just as bad, after the event posting a picture of a big pile of opened gifts.

Since when does anyone want to see pictures of presents? It feels really tacky and showy.

YANBU
I hate show offs.

I have one girl who photos and thanks every individual present for her and her child, not say a colouring book but expensive things, she recently put a photo album on Facebook of photos of a car and thanking her husband for the gift... I find it a step too far!

"to me that photo is about reminding myself of how exciting it was to walk and see those presents sat there waiting - whether it’s 2 or 10 presents - it’s still exciting."

Yes, that's it exactly. You've put the kids in bed, cleaned the house, put out the presents. And you know your kids are asleep and that they will wake up and come downstairs to a lovely pile of presents. And you did that for them!
It's a great Mum moment. And it really doesn't matter how much is there or what it costs.
It's the most natural thing in the world to me to take a snap and share that moment with my friends. Especially the other Mums who will be doing the same thing.

This thread is bingo of MN adjectives: all the good 'uns like "crass", "tacky", "braggy", I'm surprised the almost anagram "grabby" hasn't appeared yet. "It's crass" is the MN reaction to many things.

Mind you, I know it's not the situation described in the OP, but as for the child, imagine their frustration if they had to pose for photos holding each present, shaking it, before opening it. I would have hated that kind of delay as a child!

I think there will soon be a backlash against Christmas consumerism, after all there is only so far people can virtue signal about the environment, plastic etc whilst not taking any action themselves. And with that it will become actively frowned upon to get your kids tonnes of crap at Christmas, so the photos will stop.

It's not the photos of presents as such that get me, but when the pile is so huge that its obvious that the kid isn't going to give a shit about 90% of it, it's a bit

I went to school with a guy who is now the most materialistic fucker going. Drives a Bentley, house looks like TOWIE show home, always talking on FB about his latest TV purchase or whatever. One Christmas he put a picture up of the vilest pile of presents ever, for his two year old. It was unbelievable! Even some of the comments which were normally quite fawny were like 'WTF'!

Sorry, when I say vilest pile of presents, I meant vile as in absolutely huge!

I hate it. I think it's vile, and Braggy and just horrible.
35 presents and 15 balloons. Yuk.

To be honest though, what irks me more than pics of kids presents is when a 43 year old woman will lay out the presents and cards for her birthday/mothers day/Valentines day (usually with Pandora or Tiffany featuring somewhere), take a photo and put it on FB. Inevitably accompanied by the words 'spoilt rotten.

I wouldn't mind if it was low key. One main present: an x box or a bike or a makeup set or something? And a few minor ones. A few cards with money inside? Great.

But it's the OTT'ness of it.
I counted 45 presents on one recent post. That seems excessive.

'To be honest though, what irks me more than pics of kids presents is when a 43 year old woman will lay out the presents and cards for her birthday/mothers day/Valentines day (usually with Pandora or Tiffany featuring somewhere), take a photo and put it on FB. Inevitably accompanied by the words 'spoilt rotten.'

Ugh

Now there had to be some 'pandora' or 'Tiffany' in there somewhere
😂

I don’t see the big deal, most people on my social media post present photos.

I love seeing how people set things up differently, do they do santa sacks? Stockings? Pile them up under the tree? Do they do a big birthday spread with balloons and streamers? Colour coordinated wrapping?

Sometimes I post, sometimes I don’t. I always do a ‘Santa’s been’ photo after I put the presents out, as do most people I know. Sometimes I’ll do a birthday photo with DC with their wrapped presents, sometimes just a photo of them with their favourite present. I love seeing what other people have given their kids, gives me ideas for mine!

I do think the presents draped all over the lounge and floor, or the pictures of kids holding up each present one at a time is a bit much, but I usually just chuckle and say “get a load of this” to DH and then scroll on.

I’m in Australia, not sure if that makes a difference but where I am people also have baby showers and wishing wells at weddings

Don't - I belong to a fb group, 6 of us mummy's from a baby group and 2 of the women permanently post pictures of bottles of champagne next to their bath, new cars, hot tubs, horses - you name it they compete against each other and I know I and at least 1 of the other mummy's think it's in really bad taste.

They've already pasted photos of big piles of presents 🎁 they've been getting ready.

1 of the women is now in her own and really struggles (food bank last month kind of struggle) and I just think this sort of boasting is in bad taste when some people are having a tough time of it.

I’ve got mixed feelings about this.

The present photos I see on FB tend to fall into 2 camps:

Firstly, photo(s) of child with opened presents and parent has commented something like “DC loves their presents, thank you to friends / family / classmates who came to DC’s party”
That sort, I’m fine with, it’s more like an alternative to sending out thank you cards, and it’s nice for the present giver to see their gift was appreciated.

And then secondly, there’s the photos with stacks of wrapped gifts, usually all in the same paper so the gifts are obviously from the parents.
Those photos I like a lot less. Mostly because I see the piles of presents and start thinking that I’ve bought less for my DC - will they be upset that so and so has several times more presents from their parents, does buying less presents make us bad parents, why aren’t I organised enough to arrange our presents so nicely etc etc.

But this is my problem really, not theirs.
And usually once I give my head a wobble and remind myself of the good reasons why we’ve bought the (almost always smaller ) amount of presents we did, I can forget about it and move on with my day.

I'd take the picture if I wanted to but I wouldn't share it on FB. There is somebody I know who does this at every opportunity - Easter gifts etc - and it's always way over the top. They have 3 children and half the room is covered with presents.

Owning and buying stuff is not an accomplishment

Actually, it is to me. As a disabled person with an extremely low income, I struggle like fuck to buy presents for my family. If I can earn a bit to pay for things despite feeling like I do and battling many hurdles, then it's an accomplishment. But I don't post a photo for that reason. I post one because I love seeing them pop up on my feed every year and I enjoy the feeling that I did that.

But I don't post a photo for that reason. I post one because I love seeing them pop up on my feed every year and I enjoy the feeling that I did that.

I get that, I like it when I get reminders of things as well. Sometimes I will post things but set the audience to 'only me' so I can see the reminder in a years time but nobody else does.

I have a WhatsApp group who are all on Instagram, and I'm not. If they feel like I'm 'missing out' on a 'gram', the screenshot it to the group.

Not a meme, or a piece of news. But say, when three of us sent flowers to the fourth, she posted on Instagram thanking us. I mean, sure it's nice that they wanted to pass on the thanks, but there's a perfectly good place to o that - the WhatsApp group!

I always feel slightly guilty on xmas morning when my kids have like two or three presents to open and my friends post up what looks like a whole room of gifts
I don't, and thankfully several of my parent friends on social media don't either, because we know that too many presents overwhelm our children (some of whom have SEN) and we're limiting the numbers/giving experiences/spreading them out over several days/all three, and we post about that. Once one parent has done that it's easy to "own up" to not having loads of presents under the tree.

It's shallow and materialistic to post a big leaning tower of pisa of presents on FB. That's not what Christmas should be all about, but some people seem to think the bigger the pile of gifts, the better and more meaningful the Christmas.

I hate that mindset.

YANBU OP.

it's nauseating to me, but it's not, y'know, objectively nauseating - different people like different things/do things differently.

We have very little money. From us, the 2 younger DC get clothes/dress up/pyjamas and a toy/video game. From "Father Christmas" (DS2 believes, DD goes along with it for him) they get something small and some chocolates. DS1 gets a Lego eGift card, as I think Lego is all he really wants, and he's got so much I wouldn't risk getting it myself. Also, he can put it towards something bigger.

I really like seeing people post pictures the night before Christmas.

I think it's lovely to see the time and effort that people have put in to buying thoughtful gifts, wrapping them in pretty paper, the tree all lit, maybe a log fire going and the stockings hung up. It all adds to the excitement for me.

I have never posted pictures of presents, but I don't update Facebook very often. I enjoy seeing what others have done though. It seems very joyless to begrudge others posting about what makes them happy.

I never did. I lived in a place for years that everyone has to have bigger or better things, everyone copied but increased. A very close area. Around 6 years ago as Christmas eve was approaching, One of the tougher DMs put up a post, saying wait and see everyone selfishly bragging with their spoilt kids and Fakebook shit. The photos reduced by tons.

Why do people always pretend that events will be wiped from their memory if not posted on SM?

They won't you know.

You can remember every pile of presents from every year? I can't. I can't remember what things we did on what Christmas, or who was there. I have poor memory, so reminders are lovely.