Great 'Biggest Christmas waste of money?' Hunt

BobbinAlong

Biggest waste of money has to be outdoor light displays, especially with electricity price hikes. It's all pollution - light pollution.
How can councils afford street displays when they can't afford to keep employees in jobs?
And why does it always seem to be council houses that have the largest (and tackiest) private displays? Never liked them but now can just say "don't envy HIS electricity bill".

Elora

We do like to do Christmas, the whole hog but this year Santa is thinking of the environmet and is going to wrap his presents in old newspapers.... The kids are big into recycling at school anyway and quite like this idea

nuttywoman

The thing i hate is how much some people like to brag just how much they`ve spent on presents , in my mind it does`nt make you a better person !

blitz18qb

I hate christmas...although I work in retail and rely on it for my own business! the 25th is a day off to me, to spend and enjoy with family.

Although tonight I finished up my little stall...and I heard the brass band start up belting out the xmas tunes....call me sentimnetal but I felt all christmasy, like being a kid again. Don't get me wrong I only stayed and lisended for 10 mins, but i did bung a £1 in the box. Hats of to those guys...it's the sort of thing that you don't get anywhere else and really made my night!

skintscot

£50 I can ill afford to eat luke-warm indifferent food thrown at me by surly fed-up staff in supposedly good restaurants in not the best of company. And there are several of these every year. This year I pretended my recent surgery had left me too ill to attend and got out of all of them except the one I actually enjoy (my book group since you ask).

I do like Xmas but what I enjoy is spending time with my family. We go for long walks every day and play board games every night.

aloiseb

BobbinAlong wrote: »

Biggest waste of money has to be outdoor light displays, especially with electricity price hikes. It's all pollution - light pollution.
How can councils afford street displays when they can't afford to keep employees in jobs?]

Where we live, the council have done just that, but they didn't have the sense to tell anyone they were doing it to be green....:D. Instead they let it get about that the local businesses had refused to match-fund their £15K offer, so no Xmas streetlights this year!:eek:

Shock, horror , the BBC even put it on the national news...how depressing, how rotten of the shops not to stump up, etc. What they didn't mention was that our lights have been rubbish for years. They are white, (not very colourful), and are vaguely arranged in patterns but after a week or two quite a lot have gone out and are not replaced, so it all looks more like Join the Dots. In short, they might have looked quite exciting on Coney Island in 1930, but not now.

I think I could do better than that for £30K....or maybe they could give the money to those Lapland in the New Forest boys...they would probably do a better job.:rotfl:

John_Pierpoint

zeke wrote: »

Hoping for fair weather- planning to start creosoting the fence Xmas afternoon and jet washing the wheelie bins Boxing Day

As the elff & safety people won't let me buy creosote any more, can I do a swap for some of yours?

One year we had a memorable boxing day - asked the relatives round for a late lunch/early supper - It was a superb sunny day and we now have a picture of the male members hard at work tiling the south facing roof.
Exercise, sunshine to boost the melatonin, a healthy appetite; followed by a seasonal candle lit meal admiring the sun set and not a building inspector in site

starstella

I can't understand why people want to shop on Boxing Day.I finish shopping on Christmas Eve morning (bread etc) and that is it.I expect the food I have in to last at least 4 days.As for the sales, most of it is Christmas stuff and it's already over.I love Christmas and so do my family.We have the same menu every Christmas.I don't even need to make a list now:rotfl:My 4 sons have always been delighted with everything they have received.Every year they have all said "Best Christmas ever mum"That makes me so proud and makes all the hard work worth it.Now they are all grown up and I will only have 2 of them at home:(But we will still have nice food and drink and enjoy playing board games afterwards.One last thing

Merry Christmas Everyone.

chaosweddings

bratz81 wrote: »

What I do hate about Christmas though is that my birthday is the week before and people either forget, or get you a joint present that's a £10 voucher, which they never do for people who's birthday is in June, for example. I get it's an expensive time, but I'd rather you don't buy my a birthday present at all and come out for a drink with me, or a coffee...and just spend some time really.

mine is the 13th december and people either forget or get me a joint xmas and birthday presesnt.

7roland8

I don't waste money on them but find all the un-neccessary weird gadgets on TV and in mags fascinating! They are forwever coming up for new ways to make us spend - but we don't have to do more than we want.
I love getting the decorations and lights down and having gifts round the tree - but they don't have to be too expensive as I buy small things through the year.