'I refuse to buy Christmas gifts for my husband and kids, it's a waste of time'
A woman has admitted she has made the bold decision to put Christmas present purchasing on pause this year, even though her young children and husband will be ‘devastated’. With the decision made last year after she analysed the piles of abandoned gifts, Dinah Van Tulleken, fashion editor at The Daily Mail, told how while her husband will be ok as he can buy his own gifts if required, not buying presents for their two girls, aged three and six, was set to be a much trickier proposition.
Outlining her reasons for the unorthodox decision, she said: “We have, at a conservative estimate, the equivalent of two entire bathtubs full of plastic pieces: Lego, Playmobil, Sylvanian Families, model animals, model dinosaurs — the list goes on. We have another two bathtubs full of soft toys, despite the fact that each girl shows affection for only one.”
“These have been accumulated as presents, hand-me-downs and rewards for doing what we need them to do when we need them to do it. Chris is particularly prone to guilty airport purchases on the way home from work trips too. Lego seems to have opened stores in nearly every airport to accommodate this urge,” she said.
With her mind more on both waste and landfill than comfort and joy, she shared how she found it increasingly hard to ignore the impact of the excessive continual purchasing: “We’re increasingly aware of the global impact of our purchases. Everything we buy the kids will go into landfill. Much of it already has. I find it hard to stomach that the main focus wherever you look at this time of year is to buy, buy, buy. Given the cost-of-living crisis, it feels obscene that there's such a huge amount of pressure on everyone and that the stuff we buy feels more disposable than ever.”
She urged readers to really have a think about how much of what you received last year was still in use and said: “Concerns about material excess at Christmas are as old as the age of consumerism, but with the planet on fire and plastics everywhere it seems like we are at a moment of reckoning and have been for some time.”
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She had also urged all of her family members, including grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins to follow suit: “My sister was appalled,” she admitted. “She was very cross that she will be thought of as the mean old aunt. Just because I want to strip the joy out of Christmas, why should she have to?”
However, she was keen to point out that her gift refusal was not one-sided. She said: “I don't want to give presents to my family, but mainly I don't want to receive them. Gifts are complicated; they come with obligations and expectations. For me, gifts come with guilt. I am overwhelmed by the volume of stuff coming into the house. And gift-giving is part of the cycle.”
She admitted that receiving gifts made her feel obliged to buy back in return. “Present-buying can put pressure on other people to buy for you — however generously you give a gift, it's hard not to expect something in return,” she added. In light of her divisive decision, she told how she was planning to achieve this year’s goal.
Bike rentals are a great idea – she suggests bikeclub.com, which allows you to choose your bike, set up your payment, receive your bike, then exchange for a bigger model when needed. She also suggested recycling younger siblings cast offs: “Sasha will get a dolls house that's been up in the loft since Lyra outgrew it two years ago.”
When it comes to the excitement of bulging stockings, she told how she had created a long-term strategy by quietly confiscating toys and teddies and any hand-me-downs from cousins for the past six months, which have been long forgotten and will appear as new on Christmas Day.
“So the children will have gifts; they will believe Father Christmas has been. The brandy will have been drunk, the carrot nibbled and the mince pie reduced to crumbs. But we will not have bought a single thing. And that is the point. Not to buy stuff,” she says.
She also said that her husband’s gifts to her and the family would be the gift of time. She said: “Less time on his phone, less work at weekends. We will have more outings to climb walls, wildlife parks, etc. Things they'll remember and will learn from. Committing to these activities — we have put dates in the diary so that it's not just empty promises — has made us realise these are much harder gifts for us to give.”
She told how her lack of gift-giving also extended to Secret Santa. “Whoever draws me knows they'll be getting something from Choose Love, where you can buy essential supplies for refugees and displaced people across the world. I worried that people would think this was a bit holier than thou. But, in fact, it's gone down well, and more and more people are donating on behalf of others to charity," she added.
While she is aware the no‑present approach may not last for ever with their children (she acknowledges It will certainly get harder as they get older and more aware of what their friends are receiving) her hope is that Christmas will come to mean something much more meaningful to her children instead: “We have pledged that, for as long as we can, we will try to persuade them that Christmas really can be about family, not things. And, as they get older, they're more able to understand that experiences are really what they enjoy the most, even if they can't open them on Christmas Day.”
She concluded with a well known quote from the Christmas movie The Grinch: 'Maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. Maybe Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more.'
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