I'm dreading the influx of tat

[Jkoi]

I'm already wondering where on earth we are going to put the influx of tat coming into our house as presents, which sounds so ungrateful, but is true.

Previous years conversations about less buying have fallen on deaf ears. My family do quantity over quality when it comes to gifts. We ask for experience gifts and vouchers (and those are what we generally gift) but get these in low denominations with a sackful of items from B&M accompanying them.
One year I got an autobiography of a reality TV star I wasn't even really familiar with- I thought it was a joke or a mistake and family member said no it was just in B&M so I got it.
Now the items for us go straight back out again, generally donated. However now the kids are old enough to know if we were trying to secretly get rid of toys they'd unwrapped! The toys will mostly be one trick pony press a button toys rather than anything open ended or even particularly aligned to their interests, with a load of soft toys. I'm particularly dreading this year as they have got into Temu in a big way and I'm imaging a load of the kids gifts won't even meet safety standards.

I'm not really looking for a solution as I don't think there's an easy one without causing offence, I have tried making a point about fast fashion items etc going to landfill in the past and they will swear black is white that charities can make money from damaged clothes with holes in. They just don't see anything wrong with buying loads of stuff, either from an environmental perspective or the fact that we practically don't want it!

I don’t think that would work with the tat the OP is talking about.

This used to wind me up no end

They'd buy a load of cheap tat-the sort that needs an odd shaped battery (which nobody would keep in their house,so I'd have to buy some),bubble bath that brought them out in rashes (they knew this),clothes that would be the wrong size or toys that where not the genuine item but 'close enough'

The toys would wait until I'd gone out,bought the battery and then break into a million pieces

The bubble bath would have to be poured down the sink and refilled with what didn't bring them out in a rash-cue tears it wasn't the real moshi monster/in the night garden/peppa pig bubble bath

Clothes-went straight to the charity shop

The fake toys-I'd have to go out and buy the proper ones which I couldn't afford to do but felt I had to so the child had the 'right' toy and I'd have to bin the 'fake'

It pissed me off no end-such a waste of money-and it was money I could ill afford to waste to make everything right again for yhe kids,due to being a skint single parent

DS is almost 11 and I'm finally looking forward to a (mostly) tat-free Christmas. It's genuinely such a relief. We had a massive autumn clear out and his room is so much nicer now it's not stuffed with crap.

This year he's getting furniture, a phone and a camera. There are a few vaguely plasticky bits in his stocking but nothing like the scale of previous years. His nan is getting him a Hotel Chocolat velvetiser, MIL is getting a gaming chair and big sister is buying the annual board game.

He does have a fill your own advent calendar from his aunt that's full of literal crap but at least it's tiny crap - Christmas tattoos, a mini plastic slinky, mini squashies and slapbands etc. he opens it every day and sets the contents next to it, never to be looked at again. I'll sneak it all off to the bin once it's all opened.

I'll only receive one present this year from my son, my other half and I can't think of anything we want so we won't be exchanging presents. I'll be giving my son money to spend it on what he would like.

We are not picking names for the family secret Santa this year, we are giving generic gifts then pick numbers out of a hat. What is the point?! It's a game of which one of the 10 gift sets bought from Tesco will I win?

Apparently it was too hard for one aunt to choose a gift so everyone can waste some money and send some shite to a waffle

Raffle lol

Just let them play with it once and throw it out. Or box it all up and in a month take it to the family members and say you have some toys for the kids to play with at their house.

Found my people. My side of the family do vouchers for days out for our DC, which is fantastic and we get so much use out of. We then send photos of the day out to the person who bought the vouchers, to show how their present was enjoyed.

DH's family, it's quantity of tat over actually considering what we want or need. Explained to MIL in September we're short on storage space and please keep Christmas low key... she's told me there are 6 bin bags full to drop round Xmas eve. FFS.

Grinch granny sounds awesome. Can I swap you in for fuck awful plastic shit that will silt up the planet for a minimum 500 years why the fuck did you buy that granny?

I'm brutal so I would just open all the gifts in advance, re-wrap the ones that are fine, and take the rest to the charity shop or a toy donation point before Christmas even starts. That way they're not disappointed if things disappear after they open them, and a lot of places will stop taking donations after Christmas.

To avoid this happening, I now tell people exactly what I want, usually a very modest gift of something that I know I need and use during the year.

I like your style.

I wish such relatives would get the message. It is so wasteful. A close relative quite often buys cheap things online looking for bargains so I do worry about safety standards especially as I have young children. I’ve said to them but they think it’s me being worried and that no one would be able to sell badly made products here. With any gift it’s all about making it appear that you’ve spent more money than you have - I get wanting to get the best for your money and make the receiver happy, only it doesn’t work as quite often they’ll waste their money on a £5 jewellery box or such like and then complain that it looks cheap and they end up getting something else instead.

I don't do tat, DD gets one or two presents that are things she really wants and will use.

Having said that 'dreading' tat seems a bit extreme. You can't control what other people choose or value, you can only ask. And sometimes (often?) there has been a piece of random tat DD has loved and kept while the rest was got rid of.

In the end the relationships were more valuable than getting hard-line about the tat, much as I dislike it on so many levels.

I have quite a few creative hobbies - and I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve been bought children’s craft kits and art supplies as gifts. If I’m being generous maybe the buyer stopped doing anything creative after childhood so childhood arts and crafts is all they know - but likewise just give me a voucher to buy just one small useful thing rather than whole sets of crap for children! Like your mum the gift buyers also bemoan the price of yarn and good craft materials (‘£20 for a Hank of yarn - I could buy a sweater for that!’ 🤦‍♀️).

My mum keeps buying us things from Shein despite us saying how awful the fabric is. It would be cheaper for her to get Primarks most inexpensive pyjamas for example but she won’t listen and so they go to waste. In her eyes she doesn’t like shopping so handing over any tat is better than nothing but I’d rather she didn’t bother at all.

I don't get why people do it
I would ask my mum as a teenager for one thing which was £40 say an eyeshadow palette
Instead I would get £40 worth of shite makeup from Claires

I do this too. I’ve also bought play equipment for the garden for summer or vouchers for places to go in the better weather.

Oh god. This is a cathartic thread! Both sets of GPs (whom we are lucky to still have with us) over-deliver but actually my mum (forget dad, he's off with the fairies and probably hasn't independently bought a Christmas present for anyone since about 1997) is both generous and LISTENS, and always asks what the boys would like. I provide her with internet shopping links to Amazon or Lego or Warhammer or whatever, she purchases, fine. (She will never ever set foot in a shop between late Nov and December.)

PIL have recently worked out that providing literal bin bags full of tat wasn't working. (I used to flinch when I saw the bin bags coming in, it seemed so ironic - bin bags full of rubbish.) They are also generous, but subscribe to the 'mountain of presents' model and once said they wanted to think of their grandkids on Christmas Day as surrounded by torn-up paper and Stuff. This really doesn't make children happy, it makes them volatile and overstimulated and deadened to novelty. It's so sad-making. And in order to get the requisite mountain, they'd often buy off-brand or rip-off toys so they could buy more of them.

DS1 they had never really 'got' so poor child got a lot of Things That Boys Should Like (balls, pogo sticks, rubbish science kits, remote control cars, etc) which often never made it out of the packaging and were regifted or given to charity. DS2 has SEN and is often very hard to find things for anyway. But quite recently they seem to have thrown up their hands and given up! They ask DS1 what he'd like and send DH the money to buy it. They are actually now a lot better at getting something for DS2 that clicks into his current interests. They'll still tend towards wanting to get him 'lots to unwrap' but I think it's far better than it used to be.

I still cull and regift a lot though! And it makes me so sad - it's bad for the planet, bad for the kids, bad for their finances ...

"and also letting them open the box , lose all the tiny plastic bits ( Hoover fodder my dad called it) around the house- and then loose interest"

Oh yes that struck a chord! "Hoover fodder"- what a great expression.
It's landfill season again.

I would make clear that if that is bought it stays in their house for the children to access whilst they visit. Assuming it's safe or it's binned.
Don't let it through your door. If they have to store it all they might start to view it very differently. It's your home. You have the right to live how you wish and raise your children with respect for the environment and to keep them safe from dangerous toys. No is a complete sentence.

I’m getting really anxious about the gifts we’ll receive this Christmas, as our house is full enough, and this is after having a huge clear out in the Summer.

I put so much time and thought into the presents I buy, and I do quality over quantity, but my parents don’t understand this concept. They’ve stopped asking me what I want for my Birthday and Christmas too, even though I still ask them and buy them what they’ve asked for plus one or two other high quality gifts, and it really annoys me as they still spend a lot of money on me, but they fritter it away on so many things I don’t like or want.

I love to receive items such as perfume, White Company toiletries, Hendricks gin, and Charbonnel et Walker truffles and they know this but instead I receive Baylis and Harding toiletries, supermarket truffles, a bag or top with a naff slogan about gin on it like ‘let the fun be-gin,’ lots of costume jewellery that’s not even to my taste and is poorly made, at least one scarf and a handbag that I might have liked about 20 years ago. I also get many more things like this, all poor quality and not to my taste.

It’s the same for my Husband and children too - they receive copious amounts of presents from them that they don’t want, like or need. We filled 6 black sacks full of presents from them in the Summer and gave to charity. It’s just so wasteful.

I just don’t understand it, but I have a friend like this too. I’ve seen a lot of the shite she buys, and the quantities of it.

I've got 2 toddlers and I just let them play with/ break it. I sort of treat it as an experience by giving it a few weeks and then throwing out what is broken or missing pieces and donating most of the rest. I figure I didn't ask for it and people know my opinion on junky toys so the environmental impact isn't on me.

Ahhh I see I'm not the only one with this problem.

This issue is the bane of my life regularly with my MIL.

She is massively into the quantity over quality and I'm getting really annoyed as I feel that it's making the DC ungrateful and less excited about Christmas and birthdays.

My MIL goes on short holidays almost every month and returns with bags of gifts (tat) for the DC

Christmas she comes in with massive sack fulls of absolute junk.

Iv started making it clear that it's too much and have asked for only a couple of experience gifts/larger things but she just doesn't stop.

I feel so ungrateful asking her to stop but it's really getting to me now.

OH has tried repeatedly to speak to her about it but she doesn't listen to him at all.

I find she'll maybe listen to me slightly but unless I say it every month then she just goes back to what she normally does.

So frustrating

Sounds awful op!

I just don’t understand why as a gp you would not listen to your adult children! It’s so sefish in a way, despite the presents, as the gps are making it about their own pleasure and not rhat of the gc!

Edited: surely it’s not that hard just to check in and ask if you are getting the quantity and type of presents right?