It’s not a fucking stocking filler!

[YesJs]

I’m getting sick of gift guides with ‘stocking fillers’ that are around £15-20.

‘Perfect stocking filler for a teen’ says Glamour of a £25 lip balm kit. GQ, recommends a Stockings contain at least 10 presents - more likely about 15-20. Therefore (unless you’re super rich) they need, by nature, to be much cheaper than this.

I earn good money, I wouldn’t spend upwards of £250 on a stocking BEFORE the main presents. AIBU

It seems to be very hard to be unable to keep up with the Joneses, when said Joneses just do their own things and couldn't care less about you 😂

The bitterness on this thread is real.

Being told "you are doing Christmas and Christmas stockings wrong" is beautifully MN. I hope you won't be a MIL one day, that's all.

I have to say, my young adult kids are more ethically/environmentally-minded than me. They wouldn’t want me to spend money on worthless plastic from Temu, even if I wanted to. Def not a snobbery thing.

You're joking surely. These are everyday items! Gifts should be a bit special something they would like but can't afford to buy for themselves.

Oh my lord, are you really asking me that? As a gotcha?

My point is not that reading one article will make people feel pressured into buying something off the list. Did you actually think that was my point?

It’s the insidious shift towards pushing that expensive equals the norm, for what is by dictionary definition - and historical definition - defined as a ‘cheap, small, frivolous present. I bet none of us over 35 had £30 mascaras in our stocking as teens did we?

I’m not sure why Temu plastic keeps getting mentioned repeatedly. I don’t think anyone is recommending a stocking filled with that are they?

Theres a huge gulf between Lancome mascaras and plastic Temu tat! It’s not one or other.

Don’t even get me started on the actual stockings! When I was a kid in the 1970s my Christmas stocking was one of my dad’s old socks!

Are you referring to me?

I’ve not suggested anyone is doing Christmas wrong. People can do their Christmas how they like, surely?

Maybe I’m tight because my idea of a stocking is filling it full of freddo frogs and emptying a tub of celebrations in …

the OP is strongly objecting to magazines not advertising Freddo and Celebrations,

maybe she should complain to Mars Inc for not increasing their adds budgets around Christmas 😂

and then come back complaining that parents are PRESSURED to buy chocolate and the effect on child obesity

Quite a few people here have mentioned they get stuff from Temu for stockings.

Your responses are becoming nonsensical

There is a lot we could compare between our childhoods and now. It’s a different world.

Some of us don’t do big gifts under the tree as the kids get older and put it in the stocking instead. It doesn’t fit your definition of a stocking filler, but meh.

The only rule I have about stockings is they must contain a Terry's chocolate orange and a large bar of Toblerone. I put things that fit in the stocking in there. Teen boy a shaver, shower gel, a Duke cricket ball, Lego keyring, car air freshener, I found a Darth Vader one once. Superman socks. Things like that.

Wow, that's nasty - why is it stuck up to care about the environment? Or to say I put any present small enough in a stocking and any gift big enough (despite value) in wrap? I'm advocating being thoughtful with your money and not buying cheap junk JUST to fill out a stocking. Rather than spend £150:on presents and then £20 on disposable toys/gadgets JUST to fill a stocking, I'd rather spend £70 on nice stocking items (they are still presents!) and £100 on fewer 'tree'presents. Likelihood is that nicer, better-quality stuff lasts, is more wanted and feels more like a treat.

I'm sorry if you think that's snobby, but maybe that's a reflection on your own insecurities. Enjoy your festive season.

Our dc is a young adult now & we stil do stocking & dh & I do them for each other too.

I honestly give give a crap wvay anyone else does or doesn't do but our sticking are on the luxury side of things & we all love it

I adore opening mine & knowing dh has picked all those lovely thing. I always get a box of leonidas chocolates!

We have put airpods into the toe of dds before + also dior lip oil etc

I have never put stuff like tissues/ toothbrush/ underwear into the dcs even when they were small

Obviously as this thread shows every family does things differently.
So....in my family we do give things like mini packs of tissues or bubble bath in stockings.
Yes they are "everyday" things but the difference is...
Everyday = Asda basics tissues and a £1 shower gel.
Christmas Stocking = Cute packet of tissues in a Hello Kitty wrapper and shower gel in a fancy/novelty smell or bottle.
The year my daughter got colour changing bubble bath she wanted a bath right away. It's different, it's a treat.

Eeeeveryone who is unaffected/ not pressured by the magazine articles AND wants to buy inexpensive (but non rubbish) items for your offspring’s stockings … what do you do if you are stuck for ideas so you look in the <insert name of shop here> catalogue/magazine for inspiration, or you search on <insert name of website here> or look in the stocking fillers section of <insert name of shop here> but all the items are over £15? You’re not being tempted to buy the items over £15, well not for a stocking filler anyway, but it’s not helping you find anything, because, well, no one suitably challenged the articles suggesting those were suitable cheap stocking filler items …

some of us have a brain, and are able to look at "ideas" from magazines and use these ideas within our own budget and taste.

It's the same with clothes, home decoration, and food to a point.

It's not that hard 😂

Exactly. I would never routinely look for ideas in these places but if I came across something, I might be inspired to look for a similar category of item but within my budget. Goodness.

I have often searched Amazon for inspiration when doing baskets/hampers for friends for various reasons (wellness hamper, new baby hamper, sorry you’ve had utterly rubbish news care hamper) - I still have a brain, but I’m not going to claim I have all the ideas and there is nothing ideal that I’ve not thought of! Absolutely nothing wrong with getting inspiration from somewhere - but if everything that had come up in my search had been over £25 it wouldn’t have made for a very good hamper!

This isn’t what the OP is doing.

I hate wool as well (it itches and it brings me out in urticaria) so basically £460 of hell!

These aren’t being classed as gifts though, just little bits in a stocking.

I think a large cause of the disagreements on this thread is the difference in what stockings are used for, and I’m starting to gather that in general…

The “small token bits in a stocking” crew are

• folks who put said stocking at the end of the bed so children can open it when they first wake up excited to see it Santa has been, so it keeps them occupied before they wake everyone else up
• folks who have stocking hung up maybe by the fire/tree/whatever, and allow the kids to open stocking first, again to keep them occupied, this time whilst waiting for others
• folks who do stockings purely out of tradition and nearly always include nuts, fruit, sweets/chocolate and maybe some pennies!

Generally these people don’t put more expensive items in the stocking because they want to be there for the opening of the bigger gifts, and the stocking is merely something to provide little bits of fun and entertainment - for example so an excited child has something to ‘open’ before the main event, when it’s an unreasonable time of day for anyone else to be getting up - they can open their stockings and don’t have to contain their excitement when all they really want to do is run to the tree or wherever and see if Santa has been.

Whereas, the ‘stocking contains whatever fits in it because they’re all gifts’ crew

• largely have the stocking with the presents and it’s simply an additional layer of packaging, much like a gift bag or one of those santas sack bags
• stocking and gifts under the tree are opened at the same time

Each would not put the same kinds of things in a stocking because the stocking has a different purpose.

The first group generally wouldn’t put expensive items in a stocking because then the recipient would come to open their presents under the tree and possibly not even have any if it’s all in the stocking which would be disappointing if the main event if gifts under the tree.

The second group don’t see the point in little things for the sake of it because it’s the main gift giving in itself.

This is generally. I’m sure there are exceptions. But this seems to be the main difference I see.

@Throwaway65131 Per the OP's intention with this thread, I think it's interesting that the accepted definition of "stocking-filler" has changed in my lifetime from trivial disposable things just for early-morning amusement to significant purchases that just so happen to fit into a sock. Also, "when I were a lad" the sock was one of my dad's socks. Now, you can buy giant socks specially for this purpose.

It doesn't take a genius to work out what's been driving these changes.

Ours too or a pre-made one when finances were better. 😅🤣 Good memories