Reality has hit hard today for many of us as the world around us lurches forward into 2026 and we leave the festivities of the last few weeks behind us, Many families have have enjoyed spending precious time at home with school, university and workplaces taking a brief hiatus from the mundane, but it’s now time to face 2026 and all the opportunities it has to offer.
The festive season, which sees religious events taking place for multiple faiths over this calendar period as well as the beginning of a new year in the Gregorian Calendar, seems to be changing, and has certainly changed a lot since my childhood.
Every year I observe the run up to this period, as most of us do, via advertising from retailers, and a multitude of posts on social media, all of which are promoting spending money, and as the term is conined ‘influencing consumers’. The whole social media circus of influencers influencing the general public is beyond crazy. I am very easily influenced in life in general, and am sorry to say these people who have no training in the field, will try and promote any product they are offered a fee to promote, regardless of quality, sustainability or functionality. I was influenced this Christmas to buy not one, but 2 extremely overpriced cups. Both purchases were influenced by the same creator on TikTok, she has done well for herself this year and I would love to nothing more than to achieve a fraction of what she has in her 2025 in my 2026, obviously taking into account that she’s 20 years my junior and the cup holds no significance in her success.
I bought the first cup in the same colour as hers, I fell in love with the cup on its arrival. Shortly after, I found that her up was indeed a different model and I then needed to get a second cup to fulfil the disappointment of not living up to the bar she had set with her cup. Insane, I know. But I was well and truly influenced, job well done to the creator.
This led me to thinking about Christmas shopping as a whole. Christmas gifting has changed so much over the last few years. Christmas presents used to be a kind gesture. You thought about somebody and thought of something they may like, need or want and you gifted the item. On a whole I think people are genuinely grateful for the kind gesture and are not bothered about the price of the gift or indeed how many gifts you exchanged. But now we seem to be living in the era of uber-overconsumption.
Why? Why are we over shopping to this extent? Why do we feel inadequate if we’re not living up to what we’re seeing on social media. We all love to make our loved ones happy, there is little in the world more satisfying, but how much of the food, decorations and gifts are going to be fast-tracked to landfill?
When opening gifts becomes a two hour slog, on Christmas morning, do these people remember every one of these gifts? Do they love and appreciate every single gift? I don’t see how this can be possible, please do correct me if I am wrong. This leads to a whole tangle of emotions when you kindly offer a small gift that you bought within your budget and it’s not even received with a polite thank you. You know the item will probably never be looked at again, this really hurts. But offering no gift at all is met with disdain. It’s a very tough road to navigate successfully.
Then as the day progresses, we all tuck into our families version of a traditional Christmas dinner which is usually painstakingly and lovingly prepared by the parents. There will be meat, very often more than one choice, vegetables, roast potatoes, sauces, pigs in blanket and so much more. Followed by a dessert buffet. Spectacular! But how much is wasted? This is all for one single day.
Every family is fully entitled to enjoy any holiday in whatever way they wish to, as lavishly as they can. My overthinking is merely about the over production of ‘stuff’ which is now on the planet and will take generations to decompose and disappear. How can the already fragile planet and ecosystems support this year after year?
Only my thoughts…..
Site Title 
Leave a comment