To think Christmas has descended into a pile of landfill?

[TheLostMonopolyTopHat]

I’ll start by saying this way of thinking is getting me down. I find it overwhelming and depressing as it takes the magic away but I can’t unsee it.

Everywhere you look there’s Christmas tat. As I was shopping in the lead up all I could see was shelves and shelves of total shit: plastic stocking fillers that wouldn’t last two minutes, plastic toys that’ll sit in landfill long after the children who receive them have grown up, plastic polyester Christmas pyjamas for the whole family you’ll wear for one night, Temu shit, SHEIN shit, loads of shit. People buying ‘token gifts’ or secret Santa crap, new colour themed decorations every year, shelves full of cheap stuff, it never ends.

I used to get swept up in it but the past few years I’ve found myself struggling to buy toys children in the family ask for because it’s adding to the destruction of the planet. I, like everyone else, have been guilty of buying things for the sake of buying and I hate it.

Christmas has become a consumerist hellscape. How much worse will it get? We’re all full of microplastics yet very few people seem to stop and think before buying it all only to chuck it all away.

And outside of ‘influencers’, I don’t think there are many adults buying a new pair of Christmas pyjamas every year.

I have no idea why MNetters continue to be horrified/disgusted/devastated/upset/appalled by Christmas 'tat destined for landfill' as there has been a thread like this running more or less daily since October.
I have not read this thread, only the first page as I don't need to. They are all the same.
OP feigns wide-eyed amazement at the amount of 'tat' in the shops.
Others join in, trying to outdo each other on how appalled they are.
A bit of chit chat about how their decorations are decades old, they don't buy 'tat' and enjoy the simple things. They may buy 'one carefully-selected' decoration each year, but that's fine because it's carefully selected.
Usually some sanctimonious threads about just enjoying family time and competitive underbuying as their children would be overwhelmed by anything more than three (second-hand for bonus points) 'carefully-chosen' gifts. Implications that their children have been better brought-up than those who enjoy 'tat'.
Then there is the cohort who have been begging and pleasding with people for years not to buy them anything, yet still they are bought 'tat' when they are allergic to any brand costing less than £50, which means 'tat' like B&H, Yankee, Lindor etc inexplicably cause headaches/itching/asthma in the way Dipythique, Molton Brown and random artisan chocolates never do even though they are essentially the same.
Not forgetting the MN myth that is perpetuated every single year that people who buy this 'tat' throw it all out 'straight to landfill' in January and do the same again next year. In MNland, everyone is buying Christmas PJs for an Instagram pic then binning them straight away.
It all boils down to 'why can't everyone be like me, I do everything properly'.

And the pp on the first page - i am not defending 'tat' (sigh).
I am reacting to the many, many sanctimonious threads such as this one on MN this year, I am guessing predominantly from posters who either have very young children who get what they are given, teenagers or adult children whose 'tat' years are behind them or people with no children at all. Bonus points for looking down on grandparents who buy 'mounds of tat' when the poster wanted one carefully-selected MN approved toy such as Schleich, Playmobile or Lego, which although are plastic, don't count. Or wooden toys or 'books, just books'
I hate plastic. My bathroom and cleaning cupboard have been plastic free since 2019 and I am working on the same for my kitchen and fridge.
But I HATE these virtue-signalling threads that are basically sneering and everyone else but the posters themselves and making up scenarios to look down on so they can preen themselves at how superior they are.

Re buying multiple pairs of pyjamas…. This is the post I was responding to.

The poster said maybe these people are wearing their Xmas PJs multiple years (so obviously talking about adults since children will not get years of use from one pair of pyjamas). I said they would end up with far too many pairs of PJs.

I hope you’re right.

A lot of people feel very anxious about the state of the planet and plastic waste @Katypp, I don’t think that’s sanctimonious. I also think you’re implying that posters who are complaining about tat are doing so from a place of wealthy privilege and I disagree with that. It’s more just about trying to avoid excess and choosing gifts carefully. Being on a low budget doesn’t have to mean buying from Shein/Temu/B&M.

As do I. But I am heartily sick of these sanctimonious threads on a loop this year, judging other people and making wild assumptions because it fits their narrative.
'I don't buy new PJs every year but I will pretend everyone else does so I can feel superior about my completely normal behaviour'
This post will probably trigger more from people who know someone who knows someone who works with someone who bins EVERYTHING on January 1.

Honestly you need to worry about other things rather than strangers pyjama buying habits.

Oh God yes, wandered through tk maxx to buy a friend some gloves, she wanted gloves anf they do nice leather ones sometimes. Turned around and left as couldn’t bear the amounts of shit. I’m guilty of buying my mother in law a wooden/plastic Christmas scene that’ll sit in her attic for 51 weeks of the year…I had presents for her….but I got caught up in the madness!

Yeah, I’m feeling very depressed about it. As a family I thought we were all on the same page. My mum (probably has undiagnosed adhd) shops very impulsively and it has been reigned in, but unfortunately now they have a grandchildren all bets are off!

They did buy lovely things, but also things that, had they stopped to think, they know she already has!

Just because it's out there, doesn't mean you have to buy it. We don't have any of that stuff.
The more of us that refuse to buy it, the quicker companies will stop bothering.

Ah, thank you but I’ve got that covered- I worry about multiple things all the time 😂

Lego has a long useful life. My ds is still playing with dhs Lego which is nearly 50 years old (he’s 54). When Ds is finished with it it will go to another child or a school or youth club. It never breaks. I would never describe Lego as “tatt”

While I fully agree with the post, as an individual, you can just not buy it. We try very hard to buy decent quality items that will last, but, in the modern world, avoiding plastic, especially for toys, is very difficulty, just don’t buy the awful cheap Chinese junk that fills so many shops

Yes 'tat' is in the eye of the beholder. I wouldn't describe 100% cotton Christmas bedding which will be used for 20+ years as 'tat' either but it suits the narrative if some posters to do do.
Double standards are overlooked in the race to judge others.

But some people ARE being very wasteful and that’s what people are worrying about. That’s literally what the thread is about. If you aren’t wasteful then you don’t need to feel offended.

Plus you can avoid the threads if they’re that annoying.

Such is the MN way. Everything that they personally do/wear/buy/eat is perfectly fine, for reasons. But everything everyone else does/buys/wears/eats is tat, wasteful, unhealthy, common…

"apart from allowing OPs to wallow in a sense of moral superiority disguised as woe."

A lot of topics on MN fall into that category. I always called them 'praise-me' topics until I heard the phrase 'virtue-signalling.'

The OP of such topics inevitably has excellent taste, habits and morals and usually contains a disingenuous praise-me question - "my family love fresh salads and loads of delicious veggies,I can't even conceive of families that don't put away bucket-loads of lovely veg every day, I dread going to my PILs and being served just beige crap and meat 'n mash, but maybe that's just me?"

"my friend lets her children stay up far too late every night, I feel so sorry for them, they must be so tired in school, mine are always in bed by 7pm so they will be well-rested the next morning, which of us is BU?'

I’m not being sanctimonious, I’m not wealthy, I’m working class, I have bought all the crap in the past. This post came from a genuine place and I wondered if anyone else could see what I see because from where I’m standing people are brainwashed. I saw the phrase consumerism final boss on another post, that explains it perfectly. Buy buy buy, spend spend spend, bin bin bin and repeat.

It isn’t just the tat. It’s the toys, the plastic clothes, the gigantic hauls of total shit, the waste. How can you not see it?

😂 @ApplesinmyPocket

All this food waste and half the planet is starving. It’s messed up!

I prefer the emoji to the essays.

I’d have a go at choosing based on the comments on this thread alone 😂

Our local tip doesn’t take recycling in bin bags. You put it straight into the container.

It’s fairly easy to empty a bin bag into the recycling containers.