Can we start a mnet movement to ban party bags?

[bubble99]

Back in the dark ages, when I was a girl, we sometimes got an extra piece of birthday cake in a paper napkin to take home.

When did this 'party bag' nonsense start? From what I can see most of it is (expensive) junk and, what offends me more, is that the guests look for it.

Am I an old skinflint/curmudgeon? No honest answers required.

FGS, most parents have already forked-out for the food and the makeover/clown/entertainer/ unicycling jugglers, as it is. Isn't that enough?

Party bags are shite.
I don't do them.
Neither do I let people bring presents to ^our6 parties.

Neither a giver nor receiver of plastic tat be.

BUT THE PARTY IS ENOUGH TO PUT A SMILE ON A CHILD'S FACE ISN'T IT?

I have seen kids hold out their hands for a party bag without even a glimmer of a smile or even a mumbled thanks ....

then they sound like spoilt little kids

bubble pmsl @ the devaluing of plastic tat that you buy them
LOL

I'm not doing food for dd's 1st birthday "party" either, having been thoroughly sick of spending ds's previous birthdays slaving away for everyone else, and not seeing him open any presents. Have just let it be known that there will be a cake at our house between 2 and 4pm this Saturday. Is that mean or sensible?!

Now, moondog ... no presents ... ??? Um ... I draw the line at that ... what do your kids think of that?

At the last couple of parties I took ds to, he was making "where's the party bag" noises as we got ready to leave, whilst I desperately tried to hush him up! He is 3.10 and apparently has already got used to them.

It's American. I used to love party bags as a child. (I, too, grew up in the dark ages.) But I think they don't "translate" that well in Britain. Also they seem somehow wrong in this era of waste and overaccumulation and environmental worries. So I'm all for the ban!

Well little one is only just 2 but my 5 year olddd doesn't seem to mind.
God,I willsound such aprig,but the waste of paper,cards,plastic and so on really gets to me,especially when I have spent the last month watching impoverished children here in Turkey scavenge through rubbish bins for scrap metal plastic and glass.

It makes me feel so ill and angry that morally I can't justify possession for the sake of it.
{My children have everything they need though,and avery nicelife.It's not all grueland nightly beatings.}

i love love love love party bags. Loved them when I was a kid. Still have one that my mum made with her new sewing machine for my 9th birthday party. That was lovely of her, wasn't it? Love them as an adult, still. My kids love them. Love that kids think 50 pence worth of plastic and sweets is amazing.

it's just a nice tradition, if people want to get competitive with it and spoil it, then that's up to them.

Threelittlebabies. Sensible, IMO. One year old 'guests' are not likely to be interested in anything much apart from finger foods and milk, anyway. Wine for adult guests, if you're feeling up to playing pub landlord at 4pm, but otherwise a cup of tea and a slice of cake will be fine.

Moondog, I'm with you on the waste thing. Places like Woolworths just make me feel sick. All that plastic! Environmentally crazy, generally made by underpaid workers, no real value to children, just shitey tat destined for landfill.
And as for the hideous sweets! I think Haribo and similar companies should have to pay huge taxes which would fund nutrition education for children and the adults deranged enough to buy them.

But scummy, do they? This is my point. Aren't they smothered in 'stuff' all of the time? Christmas/Hannukah/birthdays etc.

If I felt that my children missed out on 'tat' during the year, I may be more forgiving...but, IME, children don't feel any wonder at the 'bag of stuff', they just expect it.

Oooh. Am definitely not on message with this thread! Haribo are divine, imo. Tangfastics are almost as delicious as rum and raisin ice cream, oysters, artichokes or gorgonzola cheese.

I hate them.

I am the old bag at the party.

think of all the work created in those countries though, our plastic tat is their economy

Scummy. Do keep up.

What isHaribo??
Generic term for a brand of sweets?
it is a word I have only started to hear in the last few years.

Ironically enough,because I bancrap,my dd adoresparty bags.She smuggles them upstairs as soon as she gets them and eats them in manner of bulimic teen.

My friends are horrified at my brutalregime but as Bubble suggests,Ipoint out that she enjoys crap and tat faaaaaar more than the average kid because it is so strictly rationed.

My two become temporarily passionately attached to little plastic toys, yes, bubble. Their friends have always seemed very appreciative as well. I have honestly never experienced ungrateful grabbing expectation as ghosty describes either. That would be irritating, I agree.

I eat the cake too

Cola bottles are just divine

You can't really blame the kids for 'looking for them' when they have been given them at the end of every party they have ever been too.

Am reminded of the Puritan sketch from Blackadder.

southeast. You are floundering for reasons to defend buying tat. That has to be the most tenuous reason for buying this crap. Similar, in fact, to British arms makers/suppliers who say that 'if we don't make/supply it, someone else will.'

Not that I'm comparing you to a missile factory, of course.

Lol Wicked Child!

haha

Haribo is a company that makes a bewildering variety of truly hideous sweets.