A pre Christmas rant!

[Primrose]

How is it that "Black Friday", adopted from the USA suddenly seems to have overwhelmed the UK this year?. I either must have been oblivious to it before or it has massively become the latest marketing gimmick for all retailers.

My email box for the last few days has been overwhelmed with unsolicited Christmas offers from just about ever retailer and online marketing organisation in the UK.

I'M SICK OF IT AND WE HAVEN'T EVEN ENTERED ADVENT AND DECEMBER YET. I really want to hibernate now until it's all over. Just how much of this marketing activity can we absorb?

Even Dan Brown Seeds have joined in and are offering a "Brown" Friday !

[retropants]

idiot people are even fighting over tv's in supermarkets, I mean......seriously? you need a new TV so bad that you'd fight someone for it???
I find all the over spending and over consumption of vast amounts of food completely revolting, and entirely unecessary. We have a family secret santa, that we have been doing for years. we spend about £30 each on a gift for one person, that's it. the kids get a bit more, but not TV's for goodness' sake. there's a pic on FB today of a woman loading 4 flatscreen tv's into her car this morning after fighting soemone for them first obviously.

[Beryl]

I think it should be called 'Blackmail Friday'. It will create overloaded credit cards on things that people don't really need or want and then come January the worry of how to pay for it all. - absolutely crazy.

Beryl.

[Ricard with an H]

.seriously? you need a new TV so bad that you'd fight someone for it???

And a new sofa.

I find all the over spending and over consumption of vast amounts of food completely revolting, and entirely unnecessary.

I'm experiencing adults stoking their children up amongst anything that excites them in a bizarre way that I cannot figure out why they do it, continually looking for approval from your children seems to be wrong though I didn't get it quite-right. We couldn't afford much but even then 50 years ago we had his and hers friction about what we should spent. We got into debt every year and my children had far too much considering what we could comfortably provide.

[retropants]

I remember most of my childhood Christmas presents were handmade.....clothes for dolls etc. we didn't have much, and I remember also my first pair of skates, the buckle over your shoes variety, I thought all my Christmases had come at once!

[Ricard with an H]

My parents didn't have a lot of money and my mother/father did make-do though I still think the rot set in just after the war when maybe parents were trying to make up for lost time.

We were poor but had masses of stuff, then my children had more than we could afford so I suppose it goes-on and-on. Certainly my grandchildren expect stuff I never heard of, it'll be digital and £100's of pounds.

Nice pair of socks for me.

Maybe something white from New Zealand and off-dry, for the special day. Seems children almost blackmail their parents these days and without realising it, hopefully they don't know what they are doing.

Children are the products of their parents, yes ? Ad-infinitum.

[oldherbaceous]

It's all down to very clever advertising, or should that be manipulation...

Or as i call it, "sheep syndrome"...one does it and the rest have to follow.

I love being the odd one out.

[Motherwoman]

Go Primrose!! Have a good rant. I hate all the frenzy in the run up to the mid-winter festival ( ) People keep asking me if I'm ready for Christmas and telling me they've done all their shopping. What? We're still in November. I made one concession today and placed my order with the local butcher for 'the lunch' purely for his convenience rather than mine. Poor blokes just collapse on Christmas Eve and have been known to sleep through lunch apparently! So I order early (beef) and freeze.

I keep watching all the sales on TV have their 'must end by' dates and then, lo and behold, they have another one, with reduced products that have previously been on sale in the outer Hebrides for twice the money and people fall for it.

Goodness, I enjoyed that

MW

[Monika]

We went into Skipton this morning and the high street was packed with people carrying bags! Car parks were full, tempers frayed ...... and we didn't buy a thing. I feel quite virtuous watching everybody falling over themselves for bargains, or perhaps I am just stingy.

Luckily, we have not given Christmas presents amongst the adults in the family for several years now, except the grandchildren (some are in their mid-twenties) who get a book and some money, and that's it.

This "Black Friday" business certainly seems utterly crackers. Well, it IS American ....

[Elaine]

Primrose I agree wholeheartedly.
All the pre-festive hype makes me dig in my heels and say Bah Humbug to the lot of it. People look at me with a variety of expressions -amazement/horror/pity -when I say I'm not keen on Christmas and all the hoo- ha it entails.

As for Black Friday...here in Hull, it was Asda who started it last year, now they are owned by Wal-Mart. It was pandemonium in my local branch, folks physically fighting over stuff and the police were called. A woman was carted off in an ambulance. All word of mouth stuff from a staff member who witnessed it. I'm glad I gave it all a wide berth. If I need a new telly, I'd rather pay the normal price than risk life and limb in a Black Friday event.
So much for the spirit of Christmas eh?

[Primrose]

I jave just watched, almost open mouthed, video clips on TV today showig people fighting in stores for discounted products like animals. And these are some of the people who are all too ready to blame the bankers foe their greed and material avarice.
Strikes me a case of pot calling kettle black ?

[peter]

BBC quoted a Met Police officer, "Shoving someone over to get £20 off a coffeemaker is still assault. "

[alan refail]

Funny thing is, it never happened round here! Went shopping to Porthmadog as usual, everything normal. Must be an urban thing!

[Motherwoman]

They weren't doing it in the local newsagent, butcher or pet food store down here either! That was the extent of my shopping yesterday.

[oldherbaceous]

They weren't doing it at our shop either but, that might be more to do with it shut over thirty years ago.