Christmas Stress

mrs_bellamy

I completely agree. Chirstmas is so over-hyped. It really does put so much stress on anyone on a budget, watching the pennies, or even just on a lower income. Adverts for larger kids toys (the ones around the £80-90 mark) have been commonplace for the last couple of months. Every advert has snow, sleigh bells and santa on. Shops have been doing the festive gift sets at 'festive' prices for ages, and santa is in every shopping mall already. Unfortunately kids do react to what they see, and do want to join in this 'fun'. and it is so hard to try to curb this.

Personally i encourage my son to make presents for relatives. I have always told him that a card made by him is worth so much more than a clintons card, coz there will only ever be one of it, and a present is priceless, if he has spent any time and effort on it. All the money in the world cant buy the love that goes into painting a hand-made picture frame or something.

lady_fuschia

Lovely. This thread makes me feel better about not doing Christmas I have t say.
You're all right- it should be about the time you spend with your family and friends, not the overpriced gifts you give them that they don't want (so that they can get you the overpriced gifts you don't want either. Wouldn't it be more sensible even if we weren't DFW's to actually keep the money and just buy something we did want?!)

RE the craft kits: Does anyone else find it ironic that the shops are now resorting to finding ways to commercialise anti-commercialisation?

mrs_bellamy

god, yes! Shops cant bear the idea of missing out on a trick.

I find it amusing that, as a child we used to make paper garlands, out of strips of red, green and yellow paper. Some shops have realised that I was not the only one, and now do kits, but they are Foil paper, and really pricey for a couple of dozen of strips of paper.

immoral_angeluk

Totally agree. There's too much emphasis put on throwing the biggest party with the best food and most expensive presents for great aunts/uncles/strangers you've never met with the excuse that 'It's Christmas!'.
When did christmas stop being about the kids and family and start being about lining big banks' pockets?

CAFCGirl

I must admit to totally 100% loving christmas!

But when I say Christmas, I mean Christmas.

Good well cooked food (not all those rubbish packaged things the scouse bird is flaunting for iceland!), lots of good cheer, having fun being around people that you may not see all through the year, forgetting the stresses of work and etc etc, decorating the house with the great outdoors, making things for the season, and just enjoying the world at that time of year...

NOT

Trawling the shops for 2 months + buying overpackaged rubbish gift sets which essentially will end up in a cupboard or given to someone else come their birthday, children screaming in the high streeet, I want I want I want! Teenagers acting like the world is against them and noone cares and neither do they, grandparents moaning how they only ever get socks, mum flustered and close to tears in the kitchen because tesco's havent delivered the turkey et al. Your house covered in all sorts of rubbish, tinsel and garish fibre optic nightmare objects which will be sold off at £1 when you paid £25 for it the week after xmas.

BUT
I do love Christmas, and I work in retail! I count myself very lucky that I enjoy my job and I work somewhere which doesnt get taken over by everything in glitter and cellophane gifts!

HOWEVER
I must say I don't wholly agree that Christmas is about the kids.... it's surely about everyone, and not just your own family. It should be about celebrating your fellow man and for a short period of the year, not begrudging someone else a little bit of happiness, and even when the above chaos of Christmas does inevitably happen, you might look at your family, and all the tears and screaming and think to yourself...

"Today I am blessed, I have love, warmth and friendship in my life, and I am thankful for all that has been given to me by whatever power that be."

LookingAhead

Lovely post CAFCGirl. I really enjoyed that.

Kind of on a tangent but sort of relevant.....I wonder how many people who blow three figures (or four!) on Christmas this year, would stop to think about spending even an extra £1 on a few tins of something for their local homeless hostel?

If they love Christmas that much, given what Christmas is supposed to be.....this should be easy...shouldn't it?

Now I say that, but I am no angel. I have never taken anything to the homeless shelter. But you know what? This year I think I will. I reject the hype & the commercialism....but if I am still going to celebrate Christmas (which I will) then I think I need to start looking more deeply at the whole shebang and not just what's all glittery in the shop windows.

CAFCGirl

To add on to your post there LookingAhead.

I'm lucky to have most things organised and sorted for xmas, so the week before xmas, my new flatmate and a work colleague, plus some of her friends from her church are all going to meet up and walk about our city centre and hand out some sandwiches and hot drinks to the homeless. Admittedly we're not travelling far, and its all walkable, and it might not be much, but its something.

I know a lot of people will say why dont we do it all year round, and thats a fair point, but I think moreso at Christmas people do become more involved with their own lives, to comprehend that other people dont have it quite so good.

So this is my time to give a little something out to my fellow man, who maybe wont be enjoying the Coca Cola christmas that we may.

Its very good point you raised there LA, and it'd be nice if we could all do a little something extra at this time of year

lady_fuschia

CAFCGirl wrote:

I know a lot of people will say why dont we do it all year round, and thats a fair point, but I think moreso at Christmas people do become more involved with their own lives, to comprehend that other people dont have it quite so good.

I think it's wonderful that you do that at all. Its become quite trendy to talk about "the real meaning of Christmas" in recent years, but I wonder how many people really take it to heart like you have.

(Having recently overheard people at work chatting about how terrible it was that Christmas was so commercial before shifting quickly to the designer handbag they bought especially to go with their Christmas party dress because they couldn't possibly have the same outfit two parties in a row...)

LookingAhead

Agree with lady_fuschia. You don't have to bother to do anything at all do you? But you are.

It's lovely what you are doing.

joeblack066

Re the paper chains.......my now-grown-up kids, and my 9 yr old have always made them from strips of old magazines and junk mail! Colourful and free, lol!!