It's time for a seasonal rant

I still have some pain after I had two teeth extracted a week ago so it's quite easy for me to be irritable at the moment but two things are really getting on my nerves.  Technology and tinsel, let me explain.
Mr FF loves to keep us up to date with the latest innovations, he's upgraded his mobile phone twice in the last few years and always hands me his old one. I don't use a mobile phone, I carry one for emergency use and since I never (touch wood) have an emergency the money I put on the phone has in the past expired before I can use it.  So I never become familiar with different phones and although he tells me I can do wonderful life enhancing things with them I don't switch on.  Nothing infuriates me more than to be with friends who are all heads down looking at their phones while I sit like a lemon, I should take my knitting or a book to occupy me during these periods of silence but of course taking out a book to read whilst in company would be considered rude, flicking through mail and apps apparently is not.  
I had a radio in the kitchen so I could listen to Radio 4 and the Archers whilst cooking.  It was simple, already tuned into the right station I switched it on and switched it off as required.  Now we have a Bose something system, touch sound maybe, basically box like devices in various rooms with practically no controls on them at all.  

These not only provide Radio 4 but other stations and music.  If I want to change the music it has to be done via the computer, Mr FF tells me I can also do this via my phone.  I'd like a system where you select a CD from the enormous stack we have gathering dust and stick it in the slot, or maybe even have my radio back.  Now all the music in the world is available to me, if I could figure out how, it's too much.

This week Mr FF has ordered a HIVE system to control the central heating,  in the our apartment, again I'll be able to do that via my phone, tablet or laptop, ha ha.  We'll be able to check what the temperature is in the penthouse when we are away, big deal. Actually I'm not worried too much about this upgrade as we hardly ever need the central heating on in our cosy penthouse, presumably I can still just turn it on if its needed.
And the tinsel business.  I'm just sick of reading all over the place about how to prepare for the perfect Christmas and particularly decorations.  

I see photos of presents wrapped with too many ribbons then dressed with sprigs of greenery and baubles, why would you give someone that, surely the foliage would die before the present was opened and how would you transport such fragile parcels in a car packed with gifts on your Santa run.  I think the value should be in the gift not wrappings that are to be thrown away.  
Perfect table settings are another irritant, give me strength. 

I like candles, I light a candle every day but I don't intend strewing my dining table with them and baubles and more greenery and plants, there's hardly room for the gravy.  The perfect wreath seems to retail at around £100 and even pine cones you can pick up in the woods sell for about £12.  No wonder people like me who teeter on the edge of bah humbug are pushed over. OK that's an exaggeration, I went over years ago, we had fish cakes for Christmas dinner last year and yes Mr FF and I will still operate our £5 limit on gifts to each other, despite the falling value of the £.