Kids should enjoy Christmas. But fuck conspicuous consumerism and fuck corporate profits. Adults shouldn’t buy Christmas gifts for each other, IMO.
To clarify: I’m not against adults celebrating Christmas in other ways.
Looks like this is more c/unpopularopinion territory.
Uh, what?
What makes you think Christmas is for kids? Just because they enjoy it? Shall we ban movies, video games, etc for adults too?
I’ve never heard someone suggest that adults shouldn’t enjoy their hard earned holidays, and spread joy with gifts and such to each other, because they’re no longer 12 or whatever.
What makes you think my and my family and friends enjoyment of Christmas is less important than slightly reducing how much money some shop might make for a few weeks?
I’ll keep enjoying the small joys of life, thanks. Kids can sod off.
I specified gifts. You can still enjoy the holiday without excessive unnecessary consumption.
I’m sorry that you can’t enjoy your Xmas if adult exchange gifts.
I feel badly for you. And a large part of me suspects this post is just trawling for arguments and bad faith.
Happy Holidays!
OP’s post is not mean-spirited in any way. Re-read it and see. You, on the other hand, have rushed straight to condescension (“I feel badly for you”) and a outright accusations of bad faith. “Happy holidays” indeed.
Deck the halls with anger and fighting! Falalalalalala
I’m sorry you can’t distinguish materialism as distinctly different from celebrating with family and friends. Enjoy being brainwashed by ads.
I’m making gifts for family that I know they will love and appreciate. Gift giving is only as much about consumerism as you make it. To reject getting joy out of seeing someone else get something they would love is a bit short sighted.
This guy’s over here making hand crafted cash…wait, that’s illegal.
That’s awesome, but let’s not ignore the billions in profits, and questionable spending, and plastic waste production that goes on every year because people feel cultural pressure to buy things for other adults. For every one thoughtful person like you, there’s a thousand buying junk nobody wants or needs.
Yeah, you’re completely missing why adults like gift exchanges. Hint: it’s not because of ads and consumerism.
Yeah it is. Consumerism eats into all of us, hard. All those gazillions spent on marketing junk to us, do you think the executives would sign off on it if it had no effect?
I mean, just tell your family not to get you anything and spend it on the kids instead.
Lots of families do it that way, you don’t need to convince everyone before you do it, just do it
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to hope (even if naively so) for a cultural shift away from the “Black Friday” mentality that taints the holidays.
Cool, but that’s not what you’re doing.
You’re complaining people aren’t doing it, be in the change you want to see, but don’t go around telling people they’re doing it wrong.
Such defensiveness. OP is practicing as they preach, and nobody is “telling people” to do anything. We’re just discussing commonly held assumptions.
and nobody is “telling people” to do anything.
Literally the title of the post:
We should all agree that Christmas gifts are for kids only.
C’mon…
Suggesting is not telling.
So, nobody should ever nudge others towards new behaviors or ideas? And how do you know who I do and don’t buy gifts for? Lot of assumptions here.
Just this is exhausting, I couldn’t imagine a whole in person holiday
I agree. Adult gifts should be based on actually coming a cross something that would be great for someone when you have the means. It should be spontaneous with no reciprical expectations.
Thank you, well said.
If anyone was planning on giving @Boozilla@lemmy.world something nice for Christmas, they can give it to me instead.
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No one is stopping you from giving home made, second hand, or similar gifts. You make the choice about how much consumerism you want to participate in during the holidays and all year as well.
Reduce, reuse, recycle in that order of priority.
Put Refuse first, as in refuse buying a product that uses disposable plastics for packaging. That one is harder, but thankfully the option to buy stuff in bulk with your own containers will keep growing up.
We should all agree to boo Boozilla.
BOOOOO
:(
At least stand by your principle in the same post. Consumerism is bad, therefore everyone should celebrate Christmas without buying a bunch of things. “For the kids” seems like a random concession to your strong belief.
It makes sense though. Adults can buy whatever they want without hoping it would be gifted to them. Kids on the other hand aren’t exactly swimming in disposable income.
I don’t see it as that black and white. Kids get special treatment in many different contexts.
One person’s “random concession to a strong belief” is another person’s admirable pragmatism! Kids get a free pass, that’s the whole point of being a kid! It’s the mindlessly wasteful adults we object to.
What is the distinction between consumerism for a child’s happiness vs an adult’s?
If the goal here is to prioritise corpo negative profits over someone’s happiness, then the person’s age should be irrelevant here.
An once a year indulgence into consumerism isn’t as harmful as you seem to think it is.
Why not stop paying for the internet/electricity/any other commodities because you are now an adult?
Oh but surely there is a difference. Children get special treatment in all kinds of ways. It’s part of our social contract.
An once a year indulgence into consumerism isn’t as harmful as you seem to think it is.
This is just as unsourced as OP’s claim. The reality is that mindless consumption of any kind is becoming a big problem for our planet, and Christmas has become basically a celebration of mindless consumption.
The economics of Christmas spending is mind boggling. It’s not a harmless once a year indulgence.
People carry debt from their Christmas gifts for the rest of the year, you’re right that it’s totally not harmless. I’m shocked how much some people spend on holiday gifts.
Well, fuck that
I agree. Pretty much everything my wife and I receive are things we didn’t want or need in the first place. The stuff we give out are also the same for their recipients. We’re planning to tell our friends and family next year to skip out on presents for us and just donate the money to a good cause if they still want to gift us something. The only thing that matters to us is to spend a good time with them.
The only exception to this would be for kids of course. They deserve the joy of unwrapping toys and gadgets.
Adult Christmas gifts are more about the gesture than giving something expensive to me. Expressing your appreciation for your loved ones.
I agree. Throughout the whole years if I want something, I buy it. If I don’t want something, I don’t.
But all of a sudden around November or December I need to hold off for a bit because someone else wants to buy it for me instead. And it’s usually not quite the same thing that I wanted- I don’t want to be rude, but I would have rather just done the research on my own and made my own purchase.
Or worse, I get gifted stuff I have absolutely no interest in. So I need to make space in my house for it and remember to pretend like I use it on occasions when I see that person for a couple of years until we are past the statue of limitations on getting rid of it.
Just more plastic and emissions. More money going to big corporations. It’s an inefficient purchasing process propped up for the sake of the emotions of irrational people. And corporations like Hallmark seem to exist specifically to amplify these traditions for the benefit of modern shareholders.
Thank you for the adult perspective.
