this post was submitted on 06 Jul 2025
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I fucking hate all the stupid plastic presents people buy and the ritual of opening them
I've been thinking about this a lot recently. I try to avoid cheap plastic toys and yet my house is filled with them. I have parents and in-laws that will still buy them too much stuff, there's birthday party goodie bags, etc. Throwing it away doesn't help the environment and charity stores don't want most of it (can't blame them). It's both a quantity and quality issue for me. It reminds me of when Marx talks about how distant societies cannot avoid capitalism - it's a global system that must expand everywhere. It feels like amassing all these plastic toys feels on some level like an extension of that; constantly expanding commodity production that has to go somewhere, environmental degradation be damned.
Agree. The latest one was this cheap water table from amazon, it was like two feet tall and had like literally 50 little pieces. It is already broken and pieces lost. And I hate it. I hate the waste. I hate that it lasted like 10 days. I hate that I had to put it together. I hate that I had to recycle the box. I hate that I have to dry out the pieces. I hate that it was a waste of money. I hate that I have to send a photo of him playing with it all together and keep it around in case they come visit.
I should be super grateful and just happy but like just ask me what he wants and we can do one big gift. Egh.
Are you talking about those things that are designed for an "unboxing" experience? I'm lucky so far that my kid hasn't been too interested in them.
No, I'm taking about literally receiving any presents at all and making opening then a big performance.
Where I'm at, it's very normal to not open presents if there are any (it's also normal to have a no presents party). Instead the kid receiving gifts opens them after everyone leaves. I'm not sure where it started but I like it.
I'm lucky that most of the parents at my kid's preschool put "no presents please" on birthday invitations lol
How many 3d printed dragon chains do you own, be honest?