Just stop all this crap buying?

[PassingStranger]

Woman in front of me today at shop buying a load of secret santa stuff this morning. I heard her telling the assistant. She also mentioned some of it was for a lucky dip. It was all sweets and chocolate too.

Can people not make a stand now and refuse to get sucked into all this crap.

Just because of a fairytale about a virgin birth sometime in December possibly the whole countries been brainwashed for years,into thinking people have got to have presents and secret santas and lucky díps etc?

Does anyone actually need any of this stuff anyway and more chocolate?
Will the world end if we start to push back?

Its so heavily entrenched into people's minds, they feel its Just something they must do.

I look forward to the day more people start to reject these things and think for themselves?

Is this really want I want to do or am im doing it because its something I have always done?

Do people really need what i am buying?
Martin Lewis seems to be on track with it.
Its ugly.

Why does buying shite give you joy?

The question is what effect all that buying and giving is having on the environment. Are you giving gifts worth having and keeping, or throwaway gifts destined for landfill?

But is it just you that’s having fun? Like forced fun? Can’t imagine that it’s much fun for children not receiving at least one gift on Xmas morning. Sounds a bit joyless.

Oh, please, long before anyone had an idea about Christianity, there was a Yule celebration exactly because we need some cheering up at this time of year. Christianity just adopted it

and as for who is buying all the plastic tat… I’m looking at you, SiL

You really believe you buy seasonal shite because you’re freely choosing to do so? How naive. We all live in a world of powerful open and hidden messages that are intended to make us believe buying stuff will make us and others happy, we are frankly brainwashed into feeling that our elf on a shelf is a choice we freely make. It isn’t. Its the behavioural outcome of exposure to a zillion tiny messages you’ve been exposed to.

I completely agree with wasteful presents that are bought just for the sake of it rather than being truly thoughtful/useful to the person. I dont see anything wrong with buying chocolate/sweets as gifts if they are something the person receiving loves. Secret Santa is no problem as long as people are happy and excited to do it and dont feel obligated. I want to buy my DD a pair of christmas pj's to wear all of December but im not making her a whole box of things and I wont be doing the elf thing.

But I think for children especially there's really no harm in all these fun little things it creates magic for children and even for parents, that got lost in adulthood. It should just be about moderation overall. We are also going to 1 faurly cheap christmas event with a group of us but im not paying out for lots of different expensive activities because I dont think thats right. The same with Xmas food really ill be carefully selecting how much im buying/spending this year!

And many, many people are highly suggestible to these constant messages, and will swear blind, that they are making free choices. To some extent we are all affected by this.

I hope all the landfill tat warriors don't have children, don't own cars, never fly anywhere, never go on a cruise, ration water, grow there own food or source only locally grown produce, don't eat meat, never put the heating on etc, etc, etc...

It's not that simple though, is it? If the stuff you are buying is the product of forced and/or child labour, you are enabling that. Buy only things produced in your own country, preferably as local as possible, and let people in other countries do the same. The planet benefits, which means everyone does. There is no economic framework that makes forced labour, especially child labour, morally defensible.

Why is there a presumption that all gifts are “plastic tat destined for landfill”?

It is possible to buy a gift without it being rubbish.

As posted on here earlier a daughter telling her mum she loves her dad more because he buys her more presents.

Sadly, not a new phenomenom, 20+ years ago I would hear conversations among pupils, one once said that she was lucky her parents were divorced because they had to match each other's spending, apparently she had told her father that her mother was spending £300 on her so he had to spend at least that!

Ah, the joy of the mumsnet moaning seasons.

Go outside and get some fresh air if you're getting worked up about people enjoying their lives.

Balance is easy.

You stop buying for adults - we have done this in our family. You consciously choose consumables for things like stocking fillers and not crappy plastic toys, just buy chocolate, sweets, shower gels, fancy hot chocolate - whatever the recipient likes. Ask for experiences rather than more stuff - tickets to the pantomime, annual pass to your local wildlife park, voucher for the local tapas restaurant etc. That way you are still gift-giving, not contributing to the amount of shite going to landfill AND supporting local business. (DH is getting an axe-throwing voucher from me this year).

Or you just say "let's go out for a meal rather than doing presents this year".

I remember about 12 years ago I served a lady buying about 60 tubs of inferior chocolate. She said that she has done her Christmas gift shopping in that visit. I’m glad I’m not related to her. As she would give every family member a tub of these.

I think it's sad that Christmas has become about quantity and consumerism. It used to be an actual treat.

A child of the 80s, I used to love Christmas for the novelty of (for example) being allowed to eat Quality Street after a big dinner.

Quality Street taste horrible now, and with sugary snacks seeming to become part of the modern diet, there's not much novelty about eating UPF in front of the TV.

Maybe you need to take the same advice...🤦🏻‍♀️

Maybe with so many family members that's all she can afford.

Plenty of us re-use decorations year after year. Some of ours date back many decades, even to the 1950s. And there are many families the same.

Bravo

I think we're all suffering from boiled frog syndrome. Consumerism was already rife in the 80s-90s but things then were relatively expensive and most people on average wages couldn't afford the frenetic consumption that is considered the bare minimum now. In the last 20 years or so, things have really accelerated, to the point where most of what we buy has been intentionally produced to be thrown away shortly after purchase. We all "deserve it" and everything needs to be "special", "luxury", "high end" or a "treat". Buy now, think later - or better, don't think at all. Gobble up all the ads, all the SM posts, all the marketing disguised as articles/films/art. It's completely insane.

Our Puritan ancestors would be so happy to see the Puritan spirit is alive and well 😉

I’m getting my grandchildren a couple of small jute Santa bags a couple of things inside and a bit of soot sprinkled on top they will be obviously placed by the fireplace then hopefully they will think Santa came down the chimney

A other lecture from the woke superior being. Yippeeee.

Hope people buy more than ever this Xmas.

And that is part of the problem as well. If finances are an issue, there should not be the expectation to buy Adults gifts. They do not need a cheap tub of rubbish chocolate.

Maybe they don’t. Maybe they just want them. Maybe they feel it creates happy memories. Who says we are only allowed to buy things we need? Maybe we should just let people spend their money on whatever they like and stop judging people who make different choices to the ones we’d make?