Has Christmas became too materialstic?

[stella139]

When you were younger, did you feel like Christmas had a different focus?
In my opinion, it seems like the main thing we focus on these days is buying presents etc, with people starting months ahead.

Do you think that buying lots of things has became the main focus of Christmas? Curious to know what you think.

I don't remember the "build up" being as materialistic when I was growing up - we'd do a visit to garden centre Father Christmas, Christingle service, School carol concert/nativity, and one year we went to a Pantomine. Reusable advent calendar with a chocolate inside.

Personally, I don't like "North Pole breakfasts" "elf on the shelfs" or expensive advent calendars. (though I don't judge those who do)

I bought stuff months ahead when my children were small because it helped spread the cost of my very tight budget. They didn't get more presents, I just bought them earlier.

When I was small (I'm almost 60) my mum used to pay into a Christmas club to afford presents for all 6 of us. I don't see the difference really.

Without a doubt.

I think it’s just you seeing it as an adult rather than a child. Makes you appreciate what your parents did for you. Also lovely to see children enjoying it.

What i remember of childhood Christmas... Various parties in the build up, going to see the various houses that went all out on lights, Seeing Santa in his grotto, big pile of presents.
My adult Christmases (normal year)... Juggling kids parties/events (esp when you have a child in the choir), DHs various work events and the events I expected to attend as his wife... With maybe a night out with friends. Then juggling family.

Then there's stuff like the Santa train... I never did I as a child. But DH has a photo with him and his cousins and grandmother on the Same Santa Train the day his brother was born. 35years ago. So it isn't a new thing.

The Elf. That's new. Actually got one for the first time... But ours just hides in odd places around the house.

No.
For me the focus of Christmas is usually

• town carols / lantern parade / carnival
• being with family

Can't do any of that this year, so snuggling up at home trying to help anxious DD feel safe and secure.

I think the actual day is about the same but what makes it more materialistic is the advent calendars now! We had either a paper picture one or if lucky a chocolate one. Also the build up seems longer, elf on the fecking shelf and Christmas music and products around in August/September.

I bought DDs main present over 2 years ago. Not because I am particularly materialistic but because it was an awesome present for 20% of the usual price.

So YABU for thinking materialism and buying in advance go hand in hand.

My childhood Christmas's were in the 80s and people said the same then. I think it's definitely become more 'showy' but that's since social media. Maybe people are being showy or maybe they're sharing ideas. I'm thinking elf on the shelf and matching family Christmas onesies kind of thing.

Has been this way as long as I can remember

The MN Christmas thread could supply researchers with years of material on how absurdly commercial Christmas has become.

I don’t think so for me and my family; for us the presents are a little bonus but it’s the spending time with family and eating and drinking that we enjoy the most.
I find that the expectations of “making memories” with your DC is harder - seeing Father Christmas in some exiting way, doing elf on the shelf, Christmas Eve boxes, other random Christmas events. It feels like it’s not enough just to buy presents from Father Christmas and take the kids to a grotto in a supermarket and I resent that pressure.

It is what you make of it. I think in more recent years many people have turned their back on mass produced shite and have began making gifts.

The presents was always the main focus for me as a chid!

But it's what you want it to be.

Ultimately it's a celebration of being alive.

No, because I have the Xmas I want.

When I was a child Christmas was about the birth of Christ, not about stuffing your face with as much food as you can and spending a fortune on presents. Appreciate most people are not religious these days or are non Christian but the whole meaning of Christmas has been submerged in a commercial deluge

People should just do what my family do. Secret Santa with £30 limit. It's great. It means you only have to buy one present and the day itself is just about cooking and eating together, getting pissed and playing games.

I recall being in Heathrow airport in October 2000 and XMAS stuff being everywhere or I recall my aunt returning from London holiday in September 96 and bringing us back chocolate advent calendars.

Nah I don't think it's new, for decades now it's being nothing for an excuse for spending on gifts and drinking/feasting etc but I would agree that the actual reason for Xmas [the Religious part] is becoming increasingly diminished in our atheist world.

I am 35 and always recall teaching telling the Nativity story and classes having the nativity play every year with the carol services etc in schools back in the 90s and everybody going to mass on Xmas day or Christmas eve.[I was from Ireland and Catholic]. I recall in secondary school there would always be a mass for every year group you'd have to attend at XMAS. But I have worked in UK primary schools and secondary schools in adulthood and never saw any Nativity play or carol services so not sure if that was done back in the day in UK?
I'm not sure if the primary/secondary schools in Ireland do that to such an extent anymore either.

but the whole meaning of Christmas

Oh please. Do we need to dissect that one?

I grew up with Christmas being a religious observation, so lots of advent prayer services, carol services, craft fairs and christingles.

It was bloody miserable.

Some people actually enjoy presents and shopping, and different food and doing fun trips with a Santa hat.

Some like Christmas themed musical toilet roll, and blow up Santa's outside.

The sneery attitude of it's too commercial is often conflated with tight fisted misers - so I shall happily have a blow out, while you go bah humbug!

A Charlie Brown Christmas was first broadcast in 1965 and its message concerns the commercialisation of Christmas. In those days, most families in the USA had an aluminium tree; seeing Charlie Brown's 'real' tree brought real trees back into fashion.

As long as capitalism has existed, Christmas has been getting more and more commercialised, because that is the entire point of capitalism.

I would agree that the actual reason for Xmas [the Religious part] is becoming increasingly diminished in our atheist world.

Bangs head against wall.....

There was no real build up to Christmas when I was a child. We did the Christmas play at school and probably some Christmassy activities but I don’t remember doing much at home. I honestly don’t really remember even watching Christmas films at home. My Mum has always had to match the Christmas tree with the room decor so the joy was even removed from that, we didn’t help decorate or anything.

My Dad is Jewish and parents are separated so I used to open gifts with my Mum then have Christmas dinner at lunchtime. My Dad would collect me and we’d have a belated Hanukkah get together with my Gran, uncle and cousins at my Gran’s house. All I really remember about Christmas is that we watched chicken run every single year and my Mum used to let us open my Uncle’s present on Christmas Eve because he always bought the cheapest crappiest thing he could so we’d have a laugh at his expense.

I make a big deal over Christmas now with my own DC. Don’t really make it all about the gifts, we always have a huge build up to the day itself and I think Christmas Eve is more magical than the actual day.

Slightly off your original topic but I've been wondering how Christmas affects a developing brain. That massive dopamine rush when you get what you want, when Santa's been, when there's a day about gratification and excess and normal 'rules' go out the window. There's nothing else like it in life/the rest of the year. I'm not grinching, it's part of the joy but I think for lots of people that childhood memory of opening 'the gift' is incredibly potent. I just wondered if it sets us up as consumers/materialists a bit as we grow older...

I grew up in the 80s and we used to get plenty of presents then. I think what has changed is the pressure to have a perfect Christmas. Before social media you never saw pictures of anyone elses Christmas or went inside houses of others apart from a few family and friends.
Advertising is also a lot more sophisticated - used to be about a particular item, now it's about a whole lifestyle even when the and is just for gravy powder!