Selfsufficientish.com

My friend posted this on my Facebook wall (I'm of that generation, I'm afraid) and I thought you might all like *cough cough* to read it.

There's an entire thread here devoted to your vitriol.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/femail/artic ... TCALF.html

Just what you should expect from the Daily Mail. Would ruin your fish supper if wrapped in it.

The comments people have made afterward are quite comforting though...

Oh my God! The poor little thing...........even when she'd 'poor' she's rich - brat!

The children seem destined for a life of perpetual disappointment if their inflated expectations of Christmas are never checked...
I am desperately trying to provide Christmas presents for my son, despite my husband's redundancy - but we have sat him down and explained the situation to him rather than try to pretend. We will be with my mum and dad and (hopefully, if she is well enough) my 92-year-old grandma, so my son will get loads of attention and laughs.

Why has she gone from spending a fortune in Harrods every Christmas to only having a few tree decorations made out of pipecleaners? Did she smash all the handblown glass ones with Swarovski crystals in her chagrin at not being about to afford Boden any more?

I think we may be being a little uncharitable here - this is an example of real life suddenly hitting home. OK - she doesn't appear to realise that there are possible sets of circumstances which are far worse than her own - in fact, she appears to be completely oblivious to that fact - but at least she displays the beginnings of realisation that there just may be other ways of looking at things. She appears, at this moment, to be incapable of allowing that the shopping culture is not necessary to survival - but I'm sure she'll get there.

Oh - what am I saying??

She displays the worst kind of attitude I've seen for a long, long time. Do you know, I could cry for her terrible predicament of falling from a £1200 pound income to a £500 pound income. I weep for the fact that she cannot shop in her favourite stores for the latest e-gadgets for her children (I mean - shit, that's bad). But I really have to ask myself - is this woman real? I would prefer to think that she is an invention of an enterprising journalist (possibly herself). If she isn't, then the world has become as mad as I sometimes think in my wildest paranoid dreams.

Mike

I'm sorry I ever read that link,I may appear a bit grumpy at times,but thats really done my head in.The bloody woman makes me truly nauseous.It takes a lot to make a sad old cynic really angry,but congrats Mrs whateveryour name is 10/10.Sadly for them,whereas social services are all to ready to take children away from working class families in trauma,you'll probably hang on to yours.

Really, that beats all!

Welcome to the Ghost of Christmas Present.

It' is always difficult to read anything in the "Wail" objectively, and I find her wimperring rather sickening, but what this article does illustrate in spades is this:

Once upon a time the solstice was a midwinter celebration of hope for the coming spring. A time when people forgot the cold and the dark and had a little fun and comfort, a bit of light nature worship perhaps. A happy time.

Later it acquired a more structured religious significance for a lot of people and for the most part it stayed non-materialistic and rather jolly.

Now Christmas is just a large scale guilt-trip. I can quite believe that this woman is tearing herself to pieces over the fear of "disappointing" children who have been brought up to understand that the true message of Christmas is to consume. The pressure to purchase causes depression, debt and resentment.

F*****g iPad for a 15 year old. How the hell did we get into that situation?

Personally, I had detested Christmas for years finding it a miserable and joyless time. It's only recently with a change in lifestyle, the will to resist the materialism and rather less money that I've started to take any pleasure at all in it.

What a smug, self-absorbed bitch! She really can't see past the "I know people are struggling more than me but they probably deserve it - I should be able to own FOUR houses and shop in Harrods". She's lived on credit for so long she has no idea of what paying for something feels like. Maybe if she spent less time trawling round the shops and writing whinging article for that horrendous rag (for which I'm sure she was payed handsomely) she might be able to bake and make things and give her kids a better christmas than they've ever had.

While I'm on this tant - she doesn't mention what her husband earns or what income they get from their various properties - so her £500/week is probably only part of the story - maybe her earnings are pocket money.

I like to think I'm better than this but I hope she sinks and loses everything - OK, so I'm not better. That's an attitude she might recognise!

Struggled to feel anything remotely like sympathy for someone who manages to earn upto £500 a week. If we manage to earn £500 a month we consider ourselves blessed.

oldjerry wrote:I'm sorry I ever read that link,I may appear a bit grumpy at times,but thats really done my head in.The bloody woman makes me truly nauseous.It takes a lot to make a sad old cynic really angry,but congrats Mrs whateveryour name is 10/10.

Don't be depressed oldjerry! Think of it as like The Onion or A Modest Proposal or something like that. (Also, I think it's actually about her anxieties about not living up to her mother. Albeit filtered through concerns about wrapping things up in ribbons from V V Rouleaux).

Well if I thought The Mail on Sunday had any comprehension of satire(see previous re. Jeffrey Archer) I'd not have got so heated,anyhow contemplating a walk down the Teme with my kids,while surrupticiously checking out netting spots,has lowered the old blood pressure.We cant all be serene all the time..even the zombie carpenter lost it once or twice.

oldjerry wrote:We cant all be serene all the time..even the zombie carpenter lost it once or twice.

It took me a surprisingly long time to work this one out. But I've got it now! Yes he did .