Is it time to ban Christmas presents? Blog and poll discussion

Toudavid

Umm. Did you enjoy Xmas as a child Martin? Did you look forward to Santa, relations arriving with gifts, boxes to unwrap? Why deny that pleasure to the youngsters of today? Granted - xmas can get over the top and it is a question of balance but come on there is a joy in giving and receiving above the financial. Just try and get useful, wanted gifts. Avoid waste. Spend to your budget. We use a free website to list waht we want so that we avoid anyting being left unused and are genuinely pleasd when we open parcels.

campaigner_2

I am so pleased that this subject has come up. My family and partner agreed about ten years ago to cease buying each other Christmas presents. This has saved a huge amount of hassle not to speak of a great deal of money. We try to do something special for birthdays i.e. an activity not material goods. This was our reaction to the fact that commercialism had gone mad and that the real religious meaning of Christmas had been lost. Thank goodness that some sense has surfaced at last!

bails

Hear hear Martin, what a great article! Consumerism is such a sad part of our Western (and privileged) lives. I'm all for creative and thoughtful giving, and much prefer a gift that someone has taken care and time over making, rather than thoughtlessly buying me something I don't really need or want.

In a similar vein, we're getting married next autumn and my hope is that we receive help rather than presents for our big day, so that it can be really personal to all of us. We already have several family and friends helping us with the ceremony; making the cake, bridesmaid dresses, bunting; arranging the flowers; the music during our service and reception, and lots of other little touches that will make it the perfect day for us. I can't wait!

It will be interesting to read the other comments on Times online...

djm1972

My sister and I got this when we were like 12, and agreed to cancel out on Christmas and birthday presents on the grounds that neither of us had any idea what to get the other and would therefore rather spend the money on ourselves.

The agreement still stands some 25 years later.

Zyyb

I'm sure i read a blog post by martin a few years back about a present pact, I've done it for the last 2 years with my siblings, i have 7 siblings and it was just an exchange of gift cards or some entirely useless present. I'm now down to 7 presents in my family, parents, grandparent and little sister and a few for close friends.

All the rest get a card and genuine Xmas cheer!

AfroKinky1

:T:T:T

Schamansky wrote: »

Strikes a chord with me.

In a nutshell: Why buy stuff

- that nobody actually wants or is ever going to use
- with money you could put to much better use
- in order to keep up with some entirely irrelevant "Joneses"
- and produce huge amounts of pollution and waste on the collateral.

The meaning of Life isn't bought in stores.

(... wait ... it is. Doughnuts.)

:T:T:T

Although, hold the doughnuts I'm diabetic!

I'm not in financial difficulties; but I can still see that it's high consumerism and a waste of valuable resources. I stopped this bad habit years ago and have not lost any love from family and friends.

mark10_2

My wife and I several years ago agreed a policy with many of our friends to not exchange Christmas presents. We said that instead of the money going on presents we would donate it to our favourite charities. Our friends seemed really pleased with that arrangement.....

eeyorepace

I used to work in a big office and most of my colleages had spent all December's salary (which was paid a week earlier than usual) before the end of the month. They then spent January either borrowing or not being able to afford small essentials like food. I have never got into debt because of Christmas and won't be starting this year.
Some years ago my OH and I agreed not to buy each other presents at Christmas; we work on the principal of buying something when it is needed, not just buying because because it is Christmas.
Maybe that sounds boring... but it works for us.

Bananabelly

I like buying for my close family and wouldn't stop that, however my pet peeve is secret santa at work. Last year I had four of them! This year only one so far but with a 10 pound limit. I object to buying something for someone I don't really know (I have only been working there since October) but more than that I don't want more useless carp! I would rather give the money to charity.

It seems really bah humbug to say that at work though as others get into it. Any ideas on how to handle that one apart from just saying no? I have thought of buying one of those charity presents but the other person might be upset at not getting some tat.

Rotti

We opted out of the festive rat race 5 years ago as it was getting out of hand. The shops replace all their usual decent stock with overpriced rubbish and it was starting earlier every year. With the TV ads starting in September and Christmas lights and Markets starting earlier each year, it is so obviously all about money now that it needs to be brought down to earth with a big bump. We used to spend a small fortune on presents and it gets really difficult to buy for offspring who live away from home as you don't know what they have or even what their tastes are now. TOUDAVID asks if Martin enjoyed Christmas as a child. That is not relevant any more as kids get what they want when they want it so Christmas is no longer special, just like Bonfire Night and Easter. When we were kids we had to wait for things we wanted until birthdays and Christmas came around. Kids now have to have a quick fix, so what is the point of Christmas presents if it just gets people wound up and in debt for one day? We told everyone to get themselves something and say it's from us, and my eldest son got a really expensive designer coat cheap on ebay.....perfect! We spent our budget on a new Bose sound system and said it was from everyone, so instead of a load of "ebay fodder" we got something we wanted! As a teenager I used to make my grandparents a luxury food hamper of all their favourite things and buy a little bit each week to make it up. They loved it and it saved them on their food bill so was extremely welcome, and to be honest there wasn't much else they wanted at their age! I'm all for a bit of "Bah humbug" if it means a lot of common sense!