Idealistic consumerism, or searching for the joy beneath the wrapping

The giving and receiving of stuff this time of year, is, as I get older, almost always accompanied by a vague sense of defeat. With cash no longer as tight as it once was, I feel behoved to splurge. But the sense that the world’s resources are being abused by consumerism means loading up on things that people may or may not want or need often leaves me with a nagging dissatisfaction. As Zoe Williams noted in the Guardian this week, our love affair with buying things is dwindling, and it’s about high time too.

Buying things for someone else is a whole other minefield, and to be avoided if one can help it at all. I’ve become a much less grateful recipient of gifts as my spending power has increased. If I want something badly enough, I can probably afford to buy it myself. And if I don’t have it, I probably don’t need it. Buying gifts for someone with less can feel patronising, as if inflicting your taste on them. Sometimes, it can feel downright insulting. No one wants to feel, as I have done in the past, that “I’m horrified  you think I would like that.” But knowing this, the anxiety I feel about giving gifts where seems to rise. And, at Christmas, when there’s so many people to remember, and you’re shelling out for so much else at the same time, it’s hard to choose just the right thing for everyone.

And so giving something to someone with more or less equal spending power has become, in a sense, totally pointless – an exercise in telling them what I want and having them tell me something of equal enough value to buy in return, which is what I do with my sister, to avoid kindly-intended differences in taste. When you share a bank account, gifting can become even more problematic. Frivolities need to be carefully calibrated to one’s partner’s exact specifications or else you’ve just blown a significant portion of both of your non-essentials budget on something that’s not appreciated in the way it was intended while mundanities can often feel accusatory. Yes, I know we need a laundry basket, but it feels like a slap in the face when it comes gift wrapped with a bow.

Now we both have dependants we like to spoil a little at Christmas – as well as the inevitable saving up of essentials – pyjamas and the like –  for them to have something else to open on the big day – it is nonetheless disheartening to look round at the kids’ playroom and see the accumulation of toys that don’t seems to have had their money’s worth of playing with since last year. And relatives contributing this largesse just add to my discomfort. It means we have to think of things they either want or need when a little more face time is perhaps the only thing they lack; we have to get rid of things they’ve barely looked at to accommodate more stuff. Or to suffer the agony of receiving something they neither want nor need, like the Barbie house that had tomboy Ava in tears, which is then accompanied by the disagreeable task of disposal, either on eBay, by regifting – which in itself can lead to the guilt of giving someone something you don’t want yourself. Or by giving it away to charity, all of which comes with a sense of betrayal, both to the person doing the giving and also to the planet, which, with this season’s orgy of excess can feel like an exercise in chronic doublethink.

It’s hardly surprising that by January, we’re all detoxing, emotionally and decluttering physically in order to get rid of the excess bulge of self-reproach that many of us with first world problems carry round with us at this time of year.

In the meantime, as the season builds to its gluttonous climax,  it’s hard to explain to my children that the advent calendar chocolate they are enjoying may have come at the cost of enforced servitude by children on the opposite side of the planet, although, being far more informed this year did, at least, see me buy Fairtrade calendars to assuage my guilt, if not my pocket – even though I know my mornings will be marred by an unnecessary sugar spike and resulting tantrum nonetheless. I felt the same about Christmas Jumper Day last year at work, which seemed an extraordinary example of western privilege, where we are cajoled into buying cheaply made jumpers made in likely horrific conditions, possibly by children, in order to donate to a children’s charity. And yet to politely decline feels bah humbug.

Yesterday, it was nice to have the time to wrap the first bunch of gifts that I felt seasonally pressured into buying. Working shorter hours means I’m not so strung out with kids, work and festive hangovers that all the fun is sucked out of it. But my consequent drop in spending power meant buying most of them from TK Maxx, which is good enough for finding something for everyone that is probably just about acceptable without ever being ideal. But this leads to anxiety about whether my present is as good or as well chosen as the one I receive in return. In the end, it feels we’re making an unnecessary rod for our backs, and we might all be a lot happier and less stressed if we just didn’t bother. Christmas has become more of an obligation and less of a joy, and for that, I find myself becoming increasingly Scroogelike as each year rolls by.

I wish I could relight the joy I used to feel about Christmas, but even with my best efforts, I do believe my children are just not that into it anymore, perhaps because of the unnecessary stress, it seems to induce every year. Sure, they like getting stuff, but increasingly both  are becoming less interested in things, than being part of something at the same time social and anti social. All they really want this year is Minecraft Storymode, which I know will keep them busy for most of next year without cluttering up any shelves.

But, these days, with my kids resolutely anti-religious, it feels like a lot of the magic has been torn off it too. My son, who perhaps needs to be exorcised so unspiritual he feels (he sides with the predators every time on The Hunt, while I cringe with the prey), has refused point-blank to join in with carols at the Scouts’ Christmas concert because he doesn’t believe in God, and yet I can’t help feeling that without the message of hope, Christmas is futile.  Particularly at a time where the inhabitants of Royal David City and its environs are having their living daylights bombed to smithereens – again –  I would wish for more peace of earth and mercy mild than tearing my hair out over consumer goods that are, according to Prince Charles, in perhaps the most sensible thing the Royal Family has ever said, causing the climate change that are perhaps leading the wars in the first place.

So, I hope people will forgive me if I haven’t got exactly what they want for Christmas. I have tried to give little tokens of my affection that I hope will be liked, but do not cost me the time, stress and sense of appreciation failure that accompanied the year I made handmade gifts of chutneys and covered diaries for friends and relatives. I genuinely would like everyone to be a lot less stressed at Christmas, and enjoy our time off as much as possible, because it seems to me that so many of us work so hard, to afford to treat other people to nice things this time of year, but I’d much, much rather that everyone was a bit nicer to themselves the rest the year.