This year’s must-have Christmas trend is matching family pyjamas — and even the dog is having to get involved.
Competitive Christmassing has reached new levels of excess with a rise in sales of matching loungewear for the entire household including parents, children and pets. Next, Joules, Gap, Primark and M&S are among the brands selling festive-themed pyjama and jumper sets.
However, judging from retailers’ websites, not all pets are dreaming of a matching Christmas. The humans pictured look overjoyed but their pyjama-clad canines appear rather fed up.
John Lewis has increased its range of matching family pyjamas from one to three since last Christmas in response to growing demand, while Primark is offering seven different styles, including for dogs, this year.
Last Christmas David Beckham posted a photograph of his wife Victoria and their four children wearing matching navy blue silk pyjamas at their Cotswolds farmhouse. The actresses Lily Collins, Eva Longoria and Reese Witherspoon, as well as the singers Mariah Carey, Céline Dion and Jennifer Lopez, have also posted family photos in matching gear.
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It is not just the family pet who finds the trend tedious. Environmental campaigners are also wary.
According to the green charity Hubbub, one in five garments purchased for the party season will be worn just once, and most pieces fewer than three times.
Sarah Divall, from the charity, said: “Christmas can be an expensive time of year for lots of families, and the amount of waste created is becoming astronomical. Taking the pressure off and trimming down your festive traditions to things you really love can save your pocket as well as the planet.”
The list of middle-class must-haves this year, fuelled by social media, includes several trees, a house draped in fairy lights, Advent calendars filled with perfume or wine miniatures (or Lego for the children), a visit to an expensive lights display or ice rink and an adventurous Elf on the Shelf (a doll that parents move around the house while the kids are asleep). All before the big day itself.
Competitive Christmassing has become a talking — or complaining — point on Mumsnet, that online arbiter of acceptable family behaviour. Some posters have said they feel like bad parents for not joining in with every new fad. One woman wrote: “We have an Elf on the Shelf but he isn’t half as adventurous as some. He often just sits on the shelf. We didn’t buy one of the fancy balloons people bought to welcome him back.
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“We don’t have matching Christmas PJs. I don’t plan to do Christmas Eve boxes. I haven’t booked a Santa experience, a winter wonderland or any other things. They’ve got a fair amount of presents each on Christmas Day itself but is all the extra leading up to it essential?”
The post received hundreds of comments from exhausted parents yearning for a simpler Christmas.
One wrote: “This year has been absolutely crazy with the things you can buy. Reindeer farm, breakfast with Santa, dinner with Santa, multiple trees in the house ... Christmas Eve boxes, Christmas bedding. One of my colleagues went out in a mad panic because she needed 1st December pyjamas for the whole family and some more Christmas decorations for her kids’ rooms and ended up spending £70 just on her lunch hour.”
Another wrote: “People are not really doing these things for their children; they are doing them for themselves and their own self-image. It’s a sad truth that pictures for social media are the prime reason for things like matching family pyjamas and stacks of gifts that almost eclipse the Christmas tree (which has, of course, been up since mid-November).”
Zoe Blaskey, founder of Motherkind, has created several podcasts including “Do less this Christmas” and “Why you can’t please everyone at Christmas”. She said: “The pressures and expectations on parents around Christmas seem to be at crazy levels this year, perhaps because of what we missed out on last year. But with parental burnout on the increase after a hugely challenging year, which let’s not forget started with homeschooling, it’s vital that parents consider their own energy and stress levels, and come back to what is really important.
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“I encourage parents to ask themselves ‘How do you want Christmas to feel this year?’ Most will answer with quality time and to connect as a family. It’s a powerful question to ask yourself to cut through the noise and competitive everyone-dressed-in-matching-PJs photos all over Instagram.”
@Louise_Eccles