What I hate about Christmas, and whilst I’m here…. why I hate Black Friday!

I love Christmas, family time, down-time, the coziness of it all. But there is an element I hate about it. Hate is a very strong word and I rarely use it, only in the context of coriander - I hate coriander (don’t try to convince me otherwise! I’ve tried to like it but to no avail).

But if I’m being honest, the pressure to buy so many gifts and spend money I don’t have, is the part of Christmas that turns my stomach a bit each year. The pressure kicks off in November, with Black Friday. I really hate Black Friday - I tried softening this statement by playing around with words such as, dislike, allergic or repelled. But none seemed to capture the disgust I felt about Black Friday this year. I literally felt a physical repulsion to it, a withdrawing back from and disassocation with. As a child, I was always taught if you don’t have anything nice to say, don’t say anything at all. When it comes to many aspects of life, such as in relationships and interactions with others, this seems like wise council, but as an adult, when it comes to beliefs, values and ethics, as a rule of thumb, it seems incredibly passive, by-stander-y and head-in-sand. So I’m dusting off my soap box to step up and raise my head above the pulpit to share my thoughts on why the Black Friday and Christmas splurge really upsets me.

Waste:

We already have far too much stuff, in Ireland we each generated an average of 361 kg per person in 2021. Up from 320 kg/person in 2019 and 314 kg/person in 2018. Only 15% of this was collected in household recycling bins - the vast majority of the rest ended up in landfill. Packaging accounts for almost one-third of all waste collected. And a devasting 25,700 tonnes of household waste was unmanaged in 2021 - waste that is not collected or brought to waste centres and is therefore likely to cause pollution in the environment because it is fly tipped or disposed of through backyard burning. And this is just household waste, it does not address industry waste, energy used etc in the production of all this stuff.

Black Friday sales are often about big-ticket items including home entertainment systems and new tech. But what happens to the old TV or laptop that you’re getting rid of to make way for the newest version? E-waste is the term used to describe electronics that are reaching the end of their useful life and are discarded, dumped, or sent for recycling. The UN describes anything with a battery or plug as e-waste and says that everyone on the planet will produce 7.6kg of e-waste in 2021. That adds up to 57.4 million tonnes of e-waste worldwide. More shocking than that figure is the fact that only 17.4% of this electronic waste is properly recycled and between 60 and 90% of the world’s e-waste is illegally dumped or traded each year. Despite all the media coverage about the climate crisis, only a third of adults in a recent Irish survey said they are considering purchasing more sustainable gifts. And just 20 per cent of shoppers said they are thinking about gifting pre-owned items as gifts for loved one this Christmas

Pressure on small businesses:

Black Friday is a gem for large scale product retailers who can sell loss leaders, offer reductions on goods they buy on volume based discounts and sell off old stock at sales prices. But for smaller business who do not operate on large scales or who have service based businesses, we cannot compete with this. I feel huge pressure every year both during Black Friday and at tradtional sale tiems (pre-Christmas & January) to offer a discount and honestly it just doesn’t sit right with me - my classes are an average of 12 euros, for 70 minutes of an experience, for my time, expertise, energy. We love a bargain, we love to feel like we are getting a good deal, but how on earth can I undercut myself and therefore devalue what I do? It’s a question I battle with regularly.

Brings out the worst in us

Pressurised selling tactics support a captialist system that frankly brings out the worst in us humans, we’ve all seen the images of traffic jams, punch-ups over TVs in the US and smash and grab style madness and even deaths relating to Black Friday shopping and whilst we may shake our heads and tut, we tap-tap that credit card here in Ireland too feeding into the frenzied “holiday”.

Sense of urgency:

One tried and tested marketing technique is to create sense of urgency to encourage buyers to act on impulse, to splurge without thinking. “Sale ends tonight” etc are effective, yet hard sell pressure marketing tactics result in the flurry of purchasing, people often end up buying this they don’t need and wouldn’t have bought otherwise - that surely cannot be considered a bargain then? Do we not already live with enough pressure, trying our best to foster feeling calm and being mindful and practicing things like gratitude for all that we do have, without being yelled at in red capitals letters that “SALES ENDS AT MIDNIGHT”?

False Discounts:

It’s also been noted that many retailers increase their prices in the weeks before Black Friday so that they appear to offer a bigger discount when the big day arrives. Learn to question that RRP vs Sale Price with more discernment and let’s not be fooled by it!

Debt:

I feel pressure every year to spend lots of money on Christmas gifts, keen to avoid that feeling that I’ve left anyone out or that my gift wouldn’t be “good enough”. I’m aware of this, I try to stick to a list and budget, but each year the pressure is the part I enjoy the least. But I genuninely love the idea of showing my gratitude and making others feel a little bit special, so I prefer to choose experiences, artisan Irish foods and books. This year I’m going full on homemade, making some delicious seasonal bakes, chutneys etc to give as gifts - thus personalising the exchange and reducing the amount spent. I realise that many people rely on sales and discounts to help them create the Christmas they want, to allow them purchase items they need, but please consider carefully before you buy - do you really need to purchase this new? Could it be gotten pre-loved, borrowed, swapped, could you consider a homemade gift or giving your time in service as the present itself etc?

In an Irish survey of 1,035 people, it found the average spend this year will be €1,030. Those with children under 18 will spend more at €1,369. Meanwhile, the numbers that will use borrowing to fund Christmas will rise to 29% from 24% last year. That’s almost one-third of population putting ourselves into debt to fund Christmas. That really doesn’t feel right to me.

Plant a Tree instead!

So for ALLLL these reasons, I chose not to offer any discounts or sales for Black Friday this year. I chose not to buy anything that weekend because I just didn’t need anything more. I came close……my finger hovered for a long time over the ‘purchase’ button on Passengers clothing website as I asked myself several times, do I really need another fleece jumper? Do I need those soft flurry slippers when I had a similar pair on my feet at that exact time? I closed the webpage down and decided that by saying no to spend money on things I didn’t need, on items that needed to be flown into Ireland and driven to my door, meant I said yes to my values, yes to small local businesses I could invest my hard-earned wages on and yes to doing my little bit for our planet. The tree that Passenger Clothing promises to plant for every purchase, will be planted in my own garden or make a wonderful gift to another - no air or sea miles, no production waste and it’s guilt free.

Choose wisely my friends, slow down your pace when deciding what to buy, where and from whom. You can vote for your values by choosing where to spend your money and who to invest in. I LOVE supporting small local, creative businesses, self-employed folks like myself and most importantly, those who have a strong environmental ethos. I’ve written another blog HERE with a list of my favourites and some eco-friendly and sustainable ideas to help you enjoy a more value-led, debt free Christmas. I hope you enjoy the feel-good factor that comes with supporting a small local Irish business.

Thank you for caring and thank you for reading.,

Le grá,

Maeve x