They have a tea set, with mini pots and pans, spatulas…but it is the real ones they want.
They have a toy tool set (a nice wooden one)…but nothing beats the real thing.
They have a doll house..whatever!
Stuffed toys…what are you supposed to do with these?
I bought my daughter a baby doll when she was two. Expensive too. I told everyone, and asked please don’t give her a doll. Of course she was given a doll…a cheap baby doll…and of course it became The Baby, while my expensive agonised over choice was rejected! Sigh.
The silly season is upon us.
The stores have the decorations up and the jingles and santas will make shopping such a joyous experience!
bah! humbug!
I can feel my heart turning to stone already as the consumerist bullshit closes in.
I still feel a need to find some way to give meaning, or even mere explanation, to this insanity. To help capture the positive: family oriented focus of the silly season, a sense of compassion towards others and a thankfulness for our fortunes. And to help understand (and reject) the negatives: consumerism, greed, emptiness…
This time of year (regardless of hemisphere) is the toy breeding season. By the end of the year, in the guise of gifts, toys will appear. Perhaps you will welcome some as thoughtful and loving gifts, which will become precious (like the baby doll I didn’t buy). Most however, will be merely stuff. Fleeting trends or fads that will break, be lost or lose their lustre before the season changes.
How do you combat this process?
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I am too am feeling very bah humbug this year. Last time I checked we are celebrating one day ONE day…instead already late November there are events popping up left right and centre. Because there is an expectation that you will want to celebrate every stupid day of the silly season with every man and his dog and exchange cheap meaningless gifts all month long! Blurgh