This post warrants a few background pieces of information:
- I love Christmas to bits and pieces. The lights, the music (seriously, that’s the best christmas song/version ever), the family and the stories. Love love love.
- I’m a bit of a hippy. You can see how this might interfere with #1
- I just took a seminar course in my overly socialist faculty about consumerism and how horrible it is… you can see how that will jive with #2 but perhaps not so much with #1
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4 years ago I “boycotted” Christmas. I was an atheist at the time and decided that I didn’t want to partake in a holiday that was a big ol’ sham. I didn’t buy anyone gifts, but since my residence closed down during the holidays I still had to go home to my mom’s. I watched, but didn’t help, my mom put up the tree, bake sugar cookies, decorate the house and wrap presents. It was so depressing.
On Christmas morning we got up and we made Christmas brunch. Jokingly, my two brothers told me I wasn’t allowed to eat it… That afternoon we started with the gifts. Everyone exchanged with everyone else, except for me. I felt horribly left out…
Gifts in my house aren’t about getting the biggest or most expensive thing for everyone else in the family. Our gifts are always really amazing and suit the personality of the receiver. A lot of thought goes into them, on everyone’s part. We are usually more excited to see people open what we got for them than we are to open our own gifts. So to simply watch as my family did this tradition together… all excited and thankful… I was pretty down-in-the-dumps.
Suffice today, that was the last Christmas I boycotted. Ever since then I’ve been the first one to haul out the tree, whip out the Christmas albums, bake the shortbread cookies and crack the peanut brittle.
This Christmas I am facing a new and interesting challenge. I’ve been concerned with the environment for quite a long time, since the middle of high school I guess (8..ish.. years ago, I think) but I’ve never really applied it to my life more than reducing meat intake, recycling, vowing to never have a license, shopping local when I can, devoting my graduate work to environmental stuff and around-the-house electricity use. My big fault has always always always been my shopping. Here are some disgusting facts about my shopping habits last year:
- I spent over $800 on make-up from Sephora alone. This is enough for me to earn a spot in their “Very Important Beauty Insider” club where I get free shit that makes me want to spend more money on make-up I don’t wear. That’s what *really* makes this one particularly disgusting – I only wear mascara on a day-to-day basis… and the mascara I wear the most is a free one I got from Sears…
- A quick tally reveals that I spent over $600 at the Gap. The horrifically disgusting thing about the Gap is that all their clothes are extremely plain. Their t-shirts are literally just plain t-shirts… and their sweaters are just plain v-neck sweaters… but they cost a lot of money.
- In the past year I owned three different cell phones – a Blackberry Curve, an iPhone and my current Samsung Galaxy. I go through cell phones like crazy… Every single person in my immediate family has either owned one of my cell phones or is currently on a contract that used to be mine that I convinced them to takeover so I could get a new phone for free.
- I won’t pain you with all of this but other things I am guilty for: hair color, shoes, jewelery I don’t wear, going to the movies, buying books and spur of the moment “big” purchases (“honey, i just bought a new laptop!”).
To give all this just one last kick – I break shit like it’s nobodies business. My brother used to tell me I should be a product tester… one of those people that is really rough with their stuff to see how long the product will last.
Anyway – after taking this consumption class at school (well midway through, actually) I decided I need to calm my shopping habits right down… down to like nothing. I’ve actually been doing quite well. I bought a new coat, but I really needed it and a new backpack because my old one broke (I’m being more gentle with the new one…). Besides buying what I have to buy I’ve been sticking the money away to pay off my student debt a bit faster. But then Christmas time came along… My solution? Ethical Christmas gifts for everyone! Turns out that isn’t quite as easy as it sounds, but I’ve managed to find some pretty good things. Here’s what I’ve come up with:
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For my step dad: locally harvested honey from the farmer’s market, organic wine from a town nearby and locally made pottery
For my sister: (here’s hoping she doesn’t read my stuff) She is substantially worse than me when it comes to shopping, super fashionista and is totally oblivious to the negative aspects of shopping. So… I’m getting her The Story of Stuff (the book) and a donation to Beads for Life.
Other ideas: OXFAM unwrapped, most things off of the Treehugger gift guide, Las Nubas Coffee – this is a project run out of my school that is pretty awesome and Chocosol Chocolate is “zero energy”/fair trade/healthy chocolate. I’ll likely be doing donations to Canadian charities that help aboriginal people and children’s education, as well. I also like gifts of time – doing things together. Last night I took John to a David Usher concert for his birthday present, and it was nice to do something together that we both really really enjoyed, rather than just getting him something that we’d forget about in a month.
I know a better ‘stand against consumption’ would be to do a Buy Nothing Christmas – but I like giving gifts, and I think all of this can be bought with slightly less guilt.
Are there ideas out there I’m not thinking of? What do other people do for gifts each year??