To feel totally overwhelmed by all the ‘occasions’

[Liverpoolgirl50]

Christmas Eve boxes, Easter bunny presents, ‘boo baskets’, pumpkin picking, Halloween light trails, cake smashes, birthday parties. Jesus it’s like I can’t breathe sometimes.

I swear it’s getting worse too. Every time I go on social media there’s something new. Christmas toy workshops, Halloween kiddy afternoon tea, meet Santa at breakfast, teddy bear picnics at the garden centre, the polar express! I feel totally utterly overwhelmed by it all sometimes.

We are lucky that we can afford to treat our DD but where is the cut off and how much of this stuff is normal and expected now? I’m thankful we only have 1! FWIW, she’s only 2 so we can get away with doing minimal stuff at the moment but are kids going to grow up expecting it?

As a kid we got one Easter egg and were happy 😂

None of these ridiculous things were around when DD(21) was little.

They did however drip in with DS (14) with the raise of social media.

On the other hand, I remember Easter as a big family & friends celebration with lots of treats, small presents and fun games when I was little. People would even decorate flowering trees like magnolia in their front garden with eggs & bunny's. (Not UK...)

Honestly it feels sometimes like this is some conspiracy to keep us poor and working. All this unnecessary consumer crap for us to buy, so we have to work more, and keep the economy “growing” - it’s bloody nonsense and I refuse to get drawn into it.
Im in Australia and we’ve never done Halloween to any extent here and yet for the first time Kmart is heaving with Halloween crap in a way it’s never been before. All plastic crap. Luckily my kids are older so they’re through the pester stage but I urge you to avoid it - rage against the capitalist oppression to keep the consumers working and the bosses in their yachts and private jets.

Absolutely, it's good to treasure special moments.

But a baby smashing a cake is not a particularly special moment, nor is a toddler opening a bucket of Halloween sweets.

Op's list sounds like a whole load of stuff for parents who spend more time grinning into a camera than actually experiencing things with their own child.

Baby smash cake things strike me as the kind of thing they would have talked about before the fall of an empire as a metaphor for the worst kind of wasteful people.

I don’t do those things OP. I’m not skint either. I just think they’re unnecessary.

We don't do anything with "stuff" boo baskets, Christmas eve boxes etc. I absolutely hate tat and those stupid baskets full of crap on social media
However as a family we do enjoy a lot of experience days out. A Santa train, ice skating, lights experience, Easter egg hunt and a Halloween experience in a gaol etc My children really do enjoy them and I have never posted a picture in social media of them so it's not for clout .

We’re not skint because we don’t waste our money on loads of sweets and plastic toys from China 😁

This.

Do what you want to.

Ignore everything else.

My kids have always preferred the none arranged events such as normal trick or treating and the best of all we all pile into the car with Christmas hats on with Christmas songs on and a box of quality street and deliver the Christmas cards locally. They run to the door and knock or deliver and give everyone a chocolate. Highlight of the year! Make your own traditions! We did lots of arranged stuff too but none of it overtook this tradition that’s still going xx

Stealing that one! What a fab idea

I wouldn't do anything which involves buyting stuff or toys for DCs.
I'm a DGM and the kids have had everything at a v young age even laptops. Sad imv.

We don't do half of these things. Our children have always managed to enjoy holidays without having to buy in to all the commercial nonsense. And I don't follow people on social media who do buy into it. Life is a lot less stressful without it.

OP your child is 2 so will have no idea about any of that stuff. Please come off social media if you feel that easily guilted into things - it will be never ending if you start with it all.

Just don't do it.

Out of your original list OP the only one we always do is birthday parties/outing/treat. Been pumpkin picking once. You don’t have to do all that stuff stop being a sheep!

Would you walk your children off a cliff just because some stupid tiktok video told you that this was the latest thing?
This country has lost it's collective mind over this crap. Don't fall for it. You are the parent. Parent them out of expectations of involvement in this lunacy
Get off sm too!

There are a select number of parents that actually do a lot of this, and they all post it online for likes. It’s not the norm. Don’t panic.

I've never done any of that nonsense. I completely ignore it. Itcwas all designed to part fools from their money.

Ignore it. My grandchildren get none of that stuff. And thank goodness they don't.

I have 3, 2 who are teenagers but never heard of most of these and I am on Facebook. We do birthdays and Christmas Eve pyjamas. That's it.
No intention of doing all these extra things for my 4 year old either. They don't miss what they never had.

Honestly my view is it’s fantastic there are loads of ideas for various ideas for fun things to do with your kids but it’s important you recognise you only need to do the ones you want to and that every family will have a point where it’s too much (& your too much might be a lot less or indeed a lot more than someone else’s)
The year right after covid we went a bit mad at Christmas and booked everything going and it really wasn’t our most fun year. It just felt like we were constantly running between things we felt under some pressure to enjoy but and it was all a bit much. For another family it might have felt perfect. You don’t need to compare with what everyone else is doing and you need to remember their perfect could be your totally overwhelmed and overtired.

I don't do any of it anymore. We did pumpkin picking once a few years ago but I didn't get it - picking up mouldy pumpkins that had been dumped en masse in a field and then paying an inflated price for them. It was really boring too! We did a couple of Santa visits when my eldest was little but she didn't really like it much. They get Easter eggs and Christmas presents on Christmas Day and that's it. I don't think they feel hard done by (they're not.)

At two your DC will be happy just looking at Christmas lights, don’t over complicate it or do things you don’t want and cost loads.

When they get older they’ll express what they’d like anyway! We avoided elf on the shelf for years, then in primary my daughter was really upset that all her friends had the elf and she didn’t, so we did it for a few years (it’s awful) this year she reckons she’s gonna move the elf for us as she’s no longer a believer and thinks it sounds fun! There’s lots of ways to make things special in your own way OP.

It's capitalism, baby. It's an ersatz substitute for those loving family feelings, by instead purchasing things designed to show that you love your kids instead of actually putting time, thought and effort into it.

Reject it. It's all manipulative advertising. No one looks forward to stuff if they are bombarded by meaningless events and even more meaningless boxes of landfill crap for every so-called calendar event. Let yourself be in charge of your choices regarding your family, take that power from some some hollow eyed executive of a business who probably owns french bulldogs and goes to Dubai and simply needs all the yummy mummies and wannabes to jump on the next cashcow/band wagon idea.

Instagram and FB have a lot to answer to, cesspits of negative comparison and anxiety. Delete delete delete. The phrase "making memories" should be illegal haha, from a neuroscientific point of view I don't think we get to totally "curate" our abiding memories 😅

Never heard of most of these. I love occasions like Christmas, Easter, bonfire night etc but I don't buy into all the extra stuff. It's just about making money or posting photos on Instagram.