As I packed the kids’ toys at the end of the day, I did a quick survey of our kids’ playroom this evening.

Despite being a serial chucker / recycler / eBayer, I’m shocked by how much stuff we have. It’s all nice, but there’s just too much of it… and now Christmas is coming!!

I know this is all very personal, but I feel like society is trapped in an escalating Catch 22: whereby we all feel compelled to buy presents for all occasions (especially kids), but all know it’s too much.

What can we do?! 🙁

Don’t buy stuff?

I plan on buying and providing more experiences from here on in, rather than stuff. Done a bit this year and it’s great.

I agree or kids and us have too much stuff.

johndoh – Member
Don’t buy stuff?

We’re not buying much stuff at all… apart from a bike for my 6-year-old, which is definitely cool around here 8)

The problem is other people – and we have a large family and friends network. Help!!!

Ask friends and family to pay into a trust fund for his higher education?

Same here Matt. With constant adverts for toys on Disney chanel it is no surprise that they want everything! I have tried to explain that life is about what we do opposed to what we have and therefore their main presents from us will be a day at Ally Pally next week for the darts and a course of riding lessons in the new year. Let’s hope they enjoy it!!

Consumerist society innit – you know how the economy is in trouble if it’s not expanding, that’s why we all have to keep buying more stuff. I have too much stuff, the kids have too much stuff.

We try and avoid the plastic gimmicks and buy open-ended playthings – lego, dolls, figures, etc etc. They make their own games with them and the games develop as they get older. We’ve just got some little things worth maybe £40 or so in total.

Oh and when they watch telly, they watch streaming services exclusively (this is their own choice). No constant bombardment of adverts. They are highly susceptible to them, as many kids probably are.

Yeah, we do all the stuff about buying things made out of wood etc – but the problem is other people!

How can I convince everyone else to stop buying my kids lots of tat?!

I reckon we spend far more now (kids all grown up) than we did when the kids were younger.

We are signing up to the “Want:Need:Read:Wear” ethos for christmas/birthdays now.. 1 thing from each catagory, 4 gifts total (from us) Will see hiw well it goes. Its tough when every store sells toys and they want everything. Plus relatives etc..
Of course bikes and sports equipment are exempt and I’ll buy them whatever i want to whenever i like 😉

Relatives buying stuff!!!! Agh!!!!! My inlaws thought it was a great idea to buy an eff off big toy horse because my youngest likes playing horsey on peoples backs!!!! It takes up loads of room and hardly got used as horsey on peoples back is more fun obviously. A bloody waste of money. It does frustrate me the amount of stuff my 2 have and never play with. So many toys are landfill out of the box as the quality is shocking

Jeesus it’s Christmas you boring feckers. Do you not remember the unbridled joy of opening a present and it being the thing you coveted for the last 6 weeks. Be it a bike a lego toy or just some random magic set that you had seen on the telly box. Remind me of the last time you bought a bike because of its ethical manufacturing values rather than its gnar ability to go downhill faster than your last one. Don’t grow up….

The amount of stuff kids get on Christmas day – especially with competitive grandparents is bad enough. We have friends who now give their children Christmas Eve boxes, gifts from the ‘Elf of the shelf’ for good little boys and girls throughout December.

One person sees it on social media has a bright idea, it spreads, then every one starts trying to keep up with the Joneses. SiL spent a silly amount of money on individual wooden boxes for each of her three this year. Books, treats, new pyjamas etc. Stuff any normal person would wrap up and give the next day imo.

^What you say is true the sheer delight seeing them with something they really want i.e on the Santa list. When it’s some random gift that sits there doing cock all not so much 😆

Christmas Eve boxes!!!! When did this become a thing? My Mrs was on about doing it and I had a pure WTF moment. Is this an American consumer thing?

We are a bit more removed from it, here in China, but the children do have several presents to open this year.
The problem for us, was the amount of toys collected over the year, and now they get some more.
Yes, it’s ‘our’ problem, and one, the wife and I have said will change next year.
Otherwise (maybe) the Spirit of Christmas will disappear.

My brother’s eldest is 4, really odd, bright kid. So, thinking creatively about entertaining educational things she might like, I lighted on an astronomical telescope. Awesome idea. Set budget, went to telescope shop.

Turns out, telescopes have got a LOT cheaper over the years. For my budget, you could get a really, really big one. Didn’t want to be a tight arse and slash the budget, so I bought the really, really big one.

Apparently, getting a kid a massive scientific instrument whose use involves standing outside at night in the winter isn’t the done thing, even if it’s educational AF. She may conceivably get some use out of it in the future, but it’s in my parents’ loft at the moment…

🙂

Travis – Member

We are a bit more removed from it, here in China, but the children do have several presents to open this year.
The problem for us, was the amount of toys collected over the year, and now they get some more.
Yes, it’s ‘our’ problem, and one, the wife and I have said will change next year.
Otherwise (maybe) the Spirit of Christmas will disappear.

I’m in Singapore the whole Christmas thing along Orchard road is far worse than anything I’ve ever seen in the UK.

We stopped the Xmas prezzie thing a while ago, not having kids or being religious makes it easier I guess.

The nail in the coffin for Xmas was a nephew picking up a toys r us catalogue and ticking all the stuff he wanted then handing it back to his mum.

Just watched Back In Time For Christmas on the Telly… Bit of an eye opener on consumerism…

So we dodge Xmas and do random gifts and surprise through the year and spend the Xmas break riding or catching up with friends as much as possible.

.How can I convince everyone else to stop buying my kids lots of tat?!

This.

We have family who have also done the whole new story book each day through December, with weekly little gifts like new pj’s and hats etc. It is a game of Facebook one up man ship…
Now ours are getting older, it is easier to do the stuff they need as well as want, and to do experiences.

Despite being a serial chucker / recycler / eBayer, I’m shocked by how much stuff we have.

YES!

this is a huge issue in our house, the sheer volume of kids stuff we have is insane, its essentially filling the very room of the house that we bought the house for and as thus its become the kids playroom/dumping ground rather than a liveable space

the mrs is guilty for most of it as stuff comes from various family members on her side, its essentially crap they don’t want that we end up with, i bagged and charity shopped 3 bin bags full a couple of weeks ago, and you can barely tell

i go for a quality over quantity way of things and she goes in for sheer volume 😆

i do love christmas though

I love christmas, spending time with family and friends having a jolly old time. But the amount of cr@p that the kids get bought by the said family and friends 😯

We don’t buy ours Christmas presents, we put some money in their college fund accounts. That my not be very christmasy but they don’t go without, they get too much stuff as it is from family who just will not rein it in. Although we are starting to get some success with suggesting experince gifts rather than plastic landfill / charity shop fodder.

I am so glad my parents weren’t as boring as some of you lot are.

Boring? My kids have a great time, a magical Christmas, and they (so far) have always got everything on their Christmas list (not overly materialistic). The Santa presents are about 1/2 of what the uncontrollable grandparents buy. We have to give the grandparents the present ideas to stop them buying a load of tat that will be unused, and once we’ve done that we’d only be buying the unnecessary tat. Better to give them something for their future, when they already have everything they want, and more. It’s awlays been they way so they don’t know or expect any different us.

I spoil my kids rotten, I work overtime during the year so I can do that without worrying about bills or how I will pay for it. They get chat but mostly get quality gifts too.

The stuff we acquire is gob smacking we have a small house that was cramped before the boy arrived we now have an extra nursery table and chairs in the living room a huge bin lorry recovery truck and jeep in 1/16th scale , an ever expanding sea of leggo over two rooms a massive wooden toy chest full of toy cars , enough scalextrix to fill our available floor space even if you clear out the other junk. This xmas i know for a fact my brother has got crankbrat a giant playmobile pirate ship so even the bathroom will be rammed with stuff.

Next year his birthday and xmas lists will be for breeze blocks and building materials so we can build an extension.

After 4 years I’ve worked out a strategy for toys bought by well meaning relatives.

Keep for a week then charity shop:

Anything that requires perfect setting up and will cause tears otherwise (e.g. 4ft tall helter skelter truck slide with 3d click together parts)
Anything with more than 20 parts that will not work without ALL bits
(e.g absurdly complicated ‘fire breathing’ dinosaur transformer)
Anything that has to be re-set every time (home ten pin bowling. I mean ffs)

Toys that survive
Single item toys (action figures, cars etc)
toys that can go together in any way and and still work. (lego – I believe this is why lego is so popular, it’s the only toy that parents won’t cull)
Bikes – natch.

Every square cm of our house is costing us a fortune to live in, we need to protect it! I love buying the kids stuff but after 4 christmases I’ve worked out an anxiety reducing strategy. We’re really lucky that the boy is quite happy to give his toys away, will see how the next one is…

Me and the missus sometimes “disagree” about this ,my boy is three and a bit , he has more toys than he can play with imo. Our house looks like a bloody nursery!
Unfortunately the In-Laws only want to buy toys with a large footprint ,so we’ll have to rearrange the furniture again after chrimble. Ho ho ho.

wrightyson – Member
Jeesus it’s Christmas you boring feckers. Do you not remember the unbridled joy of opening a present and it being the thing you coveted for the last 6 weeks

Yeah, but it was *the* big present and you maybe got a few minor presents to go with it and dull stuff like clothes. Now they get everything they want and I suspect it diminishes the value of each of them.

We’re blowing up a massive great big tyre. Every now and then the pump and valve leak but we keep going with no pressure gauge to tell us when to stop. Any day now she’s gonna blow.

Sorry, bit gloomy for this time of year, but we’re like bloody headless chickens.