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Any ‘woke’ Christmas presents then? ?

(95 Posts)
Urmstongran Thu 26-Dec-19 12:06:08

Our eldest daughter gave us a voucher for an ‘experience’ as a present. For us and she gave our 2 grandchildren, her niece of 3y and nephew 7y, their own voucher to open. So the 4 of us can spend a day in Staffordshire (where’s that? My geography is rubbish!) ... oh just looked it up it’s near Stoke - (Trentham) in a monkey forest.

We will use the voucher late spring sometime....
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Grammaretto Thu 26-Dec-19 12:45:51

Ha ha! grin

I don't know how well my 2nd hand presents went down with the DP but the kids liked them.

I was disappointed to see so many sequin stickerbooks, plastic toys and Disney rubbish being opened.

We had fun anyway!!

Enjoy your outing when it comes.

Chewbacca Thu 26-Dec-19 12:56:16

You'll love Monkey Forest @ Trentam Gardens Urmston, it's a fascinating day out. Loads to see and do at Trentahms Gardens themselves, especially the Italian Garden. Nice gift that!

Urmstongran Thu 26-Dec-19 13:01:45

Ooh that’s good to hear Chewbacca .... must admit my husband’s face was a picture when he opened our card & voucher yesterday!
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‘Underwhelmed’ is how I’d describe his initial response! I don’t think he likes ‘doing different’ it’s out of his comfort zone. It’ll do him good.

PamelaJ1 Thu 26-Dec-19 13:09:33

We got a woke book about greening the land.
Unfortunately it was wrapped in unrecyclable paper?
I kept crunching it up but to no avail, it kept uncrunching?

Urmston- The premier inn at Trentham gardens is perfect if you are staying the night.

quizqueen Thu 26-Dec-19 13:20:24

I took all the rubbish/wrappings home from our family Christmas to sort out because I knew I was the only one who could be trusted to recycle appropriately! My granddaugher's (3) favourite present from me was a stocking filler white board and pen which cost me £1 (I did buy other stuff). It just shows you don't need to buy happiness with expensive stuff.

Calendargirl Thu 26-Dec-19 13:58:16

Our presents from DS and family were wrapped in brown paper, no glitter or anything, and they didn’t buy crackers as they are full of tat. All fine by me, but I pointed out to DH hope they now always take their wine bottles to the bottle bank, (our local authority doesn’t collect glass), as that is something that seems to escape their ‘green’ outlook.

KatyK Thu 26-Dec-19 14:01:10

Trentham Gardens are fantastic.

BlueBelle Thu 26-Dec-19 14:10:21

Hat a woke present ?

BlueBelle Thu 26-Dec-19 14:11:00

Sorry let’s try again what’s a woke present ?

GagaJo Thu 26-Dec-19 14:25:57

Didn't cross my mind that it was 'woke', but most of darling grandson's gifts were 2nd hand. Indoor climbing frame, from a closing down playgroup, balance bike and toy car garage and cars from the local charity shop. All wooden too. No plastic.

He doesn't know the difference between new and 2nd hand, plus we couldn't have afforded any of that stuff new, anyway.

Esspee Thu 26-Dec-19 14:26:48

OP I’m confused. I fear you are misusing the word woke, or is there something about a trip to a forest housing “wild” monkeys not what it seems?

inkcog Thu 26-Dec-19 14:49:00

Why is it woke? I'm not entirely sue what that means tbh.

Urmstongran Thu 26-Dec-19 14:50:14

Am I using the word ‘woke’ wrong? Ooh alliteration - I like it ha!

I thought ‘woke’ kind of loosely transferred to ‘being aware’ in this case - of the environment. Am I wrong?

If I am I can’t keep up!

My example therefore was of our draughtiness gifting us a present that wasn’t wrapped up, didn’t contain glitter or plastic etc.

Urmstongran Thu 26-Dec-19 14:51:39

Oops - Bugger - meant ‘daughter’of course - predictive text.

notanan2 Thu 26-Dec-19 14:52:47

Whether its woke is more about the intention / message, than the gift itself.

Is it intended to educate you so you change your unwoke ways?

Or is it something they hope you like that happens to be second hand or eco friendly?

notanan2 Thu 26-Dec-19 14:54:48

I thought ‘woke’ kind of loosely transferred to ‘being aware’ in this case - of the environment. Am I wrong?

Yes.
"Get woke" means "educate yourself"
Which morphed into "woke" being an insult applied to people who are considered to be smug/patronising/dogmatic/etc about issues to do with politics etc

notanan2 Thu 26-Dec-19 15:00:24

"Woke" people are considered to be permanantly offended on behalf of people who never asked them to take up their cause.

In an example:
Person starts to tell a "paddy english man paddy irish man paddy scots man joke..
Non-Irish "Woke" person stops them and begins to "educate" them about why ita inappropriate to tell that kind of joke.
Actual real Irish person in the room who wanted to hear the joke might then inject: "not everyone in Ireland is Woke enough to care about all that PC stuff though to be honest".
Woke non Irish person then tries to educate the Irish person about their internalised anti-irish self xenophobia....
And so on.

notanan2 Thu 26-Dec-19 15:02:05

Woke can also in some contexts mean someone who believes that any sort of critique of gender = transphobia and "literal violence"

notanan2 Thu 26-Dec-19 15:07:01

A woke gift example:

A CD of Fairytale of NY with the swears edited out "because you always play it at Christmad and this way we wont have to go NC with you for playing it in our company because its triggering"

Grandma2213 Thu 26-Dec-19 15:07:15

You'll love the monkey forest. I went with my DS and his 3 children, and had a wonderful time. Apparently they repopulate the areas where they live naturally with the offspring they breed there to help prevent the declining numbers.
One little family we saw.

BlueBelle Thu 26-Dec-19 15:21:36

Can’t we just use English words it sounds far too ‘hip and pretty trite’ to me
So a woke present is something environmentally friendly
My rather (rude) in my mind but ( honest) in his. ex son in law once handed me back a present that he said he would never wear as it wasn’t to his taste
The next year he got a gift of some trees in Africa couldn’t give that back could he ?

Urmstongran Thu 26-Dec-19 15:22:50

Oh notanan our eldest daughter has always been climate change aware since about 15y (she’s early 40’s now) when she went vegetarian, encouraged the rest of the family to brush our teeth without leaving the tap running, only put enough water in the kettle for what we needed etc. We used to call her ‘save the whale’. Made me smile though as in her teens she took the longest showers in Christendom!

She gently tries to educate us. I do love her integrity. She doesn’t buy many clothes - for example she has never been to Primark as she will only buy when she knows workers have good wages - ergo especially in the past before meeting her partner (2 salaries better than one in a household!) she made do if she didn’t have the money for the more expensive stuff.

But even she admits everyone can only try to do what they can. She & her partner had 6 days off for Christmas. His family live just outside Hamburg so yes, they had to fly.

She recycles to an annoying (to me) level, eschews bottled water. Said tongue in cheek to me that she nearly bought for Christmas for me a nice soap dish and a bar of soap to replace your pump soap mum.

Actually I make her sound a bit op-faced. She’s not. She’s gentle and kind and I ❤️ her to bits. I’m just a lot less ‘woke’ than she is ....
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BlueBelle Thu 26-Dec-19 15:23:00

I haven’t a clue what your post means notanan but I m sure it’s relevant ?

GagaJo Thu 26-Dec-19 15:23:50

I think 'woke' went into ironic only use, almost as soon as it was invented.