I had a conversation recently with a friend about how crazy the push for consumerism has become over the holidays. I mean, it’s been somewhat bad as long as I can recall. Remember those Sears and JC Penney’s Christmas catalogs we’d get as kids? It’s just that it’s gotten so…much…worse.
I actually loved those catalogs, by the way, and would look forward to them every year. Huge phone book sized volumes of glossy pages spilling over with every toy you could ever imagine. I knew full well I wouldn’t get any of the things in there, but I genuinely loved fantasizing that I would!
Things have gotten crazy though. It’s not just catalogs during December, and a handful of TV commercials throughout the after-school specials or Saturday morning cartoons. The push is real now and it is 24/7. Stores start setting up their holiday displays before we even get to properly enjoy Halloween, and don’t get me started on the madness that is Black Friday.
Children’s programming is now available ’round the clock and along with that our kids are being sold the merch that goes with all of it. Social media blasts us with ads for every thing we absolutely can’t live without (and makes sure to display ads for anything we even so much as think about….thanks Detective Zuck). YouTube has entire channels dedicated to kids “unboxing” toys….and those baby influencers are so popular for those simple acts that they are making millions. Consumerism at its most outrageous.
The push for buying more, buying better, and upgrading everything has intensified. It’s hard enough for us as adults to ignore all of it, so imagine what it must be like for kids?! To be honest, I’m relieved my kids are older now and no longer within the grasp of Mattel and Hasbro. One of the perks of having teens….and trust me, you grab on to as many perks you can when they are this age!
As teenagers, my son wants stuff like an external battery for his phone, and coding programs for his computer. My daughter wants organic skin care products (she got it from her mama!), and calligraphy markers. It’s so much easier, and better now when it comes to gifting them. It’s become more practical, and far less wasteful….but to be honest, I wish I had been better about it when they were younger. Even without all of this new intensified in-your-face buy-me-ness, I still messed up!
Several new studies have been popping up stating that children do better in every way when they have less toys. They behave better, are more patient, grateful, and become (obviously) more creative. Crazy that there need to be studies to show us this, then again…I fell for the trap of consumerism. The only thing that I can truly tell you I will never regret over-buying is books….everything else, we could’ve done with a lot less of. A lot less.
In the past couple of years I’ve held yard sales and sold a painfully large amount of my kids’ old toys….and even after that, my garage still resembles a bad episode of hoarders. When I think of the thousands of dollars their dad and I spent on all of those Barbies, LEGOS, and PlayMobil sets. All of the stuffed animals, Play Doh accoutrements, baby dolls….the toy cars, the doll houses….could’ve put a small down payment on a little house somewhere in the mid West! It’s insane….and just like all kids who have a lot of “stuff”…they loved their toys for a short while and then moved on to the next thing while their closets and toy bins became Land of the Lost.
I know why I did it. I wanted my kids to have everything that I couldn’t have as a kid. I wanted their birthdays and Christmases to include everything they asked for, and then a little bit more. It’s probably why we all end up over-buying. Some sort of overcompensating for one reason or another…when in reality our kids really would be happy with a few meaningful items, and time spent making cookies, playing in the snow (if you have it), and drowning marshmallows in hot chocolate.
If I were to do it all over again, I would’ve been far more conscious about being swept away by the aisles of toys and the lists of “Every Toy Your Kid Needs” that every parenting magazine threw at me. A few solid presents would’ve been just right. I recently read a post regarding a new tradition a family wanted to start. They would be gifting their kids one item to wear, an item to read, and 3 items to play with. That would be it. They would spend their time and energy on creating memories and quality time with each other. So simple and so perfect.
So, while holiday shopping for me has become a lot more simple, I think it’s still so important to remember that nobody gains anything from us over-spending or getting into debt to make sure there are mountains of gifts under the tree except for the corporations selling us these things. We don’t needs tons of stuff. Our kids don’t need tons of stuff. Our pets don’t either. This wave of consumerism doesn’t leave much in its wake except for depleted bank accounts, a sense of entitlement, and very little heart….but the more aware we are of this, the further away from that wake we can get. Right?
Now, where are those marshmallows? 🙂
header photo by Ylanite Koppens @pexels
