What would the festive season be like without the bells and whistles?
ONE way of preparing for Christmas involves buying new things – a lot of new things. But there are other ways too.
The New South Wales Uniting Church runs a website called What Would Jesus Buy?, which contains articles and links – both spiritual and secular – on the matter of consumption. As the website’s coordinator, Stephen Webb, explains, its tagline is “Stop the shopocalypse”.
“For Christians, this is the time of advent, so there’s lots of thinking about the way we lead our lives,” he says. “How can we use our time and income to do something useful, rather than just contribute further to the consumer culture around us?”
This year, with scientists’ warnings about climate change continuing and the global financial system seeming ever more volatile, there’s a growing chorus for a different kind of Christmas.
In the United States, the Occupy Wall Street movement has not only spread throughout the country, but also to Santa’s sleigh, with campaign called Occupy Xmas. It draws upon Buy Nothing Christmas, a longer-standing initiative complete with amusing, snarky posters (“Santa Came, Jesus Wept”).
On the environmental front, Mr Webb says the relationship between consumption and climate change is clear, but can be minimised with careful thought. “You can still buy certain things and have a good time without contributing to injustice, pollution and global warming,” he says. “And as we celebrate, we can think about what we’re celebrating and what is of value to us.”
If you’re looking for hints about alternatives, Environment Victoria has put together a festive season guide, which contains gift ideas and tactics for reducing waste and needless expense, from wrapping paper to table decorations.
“Christmas is a time of incredibly high consumption, in so many ways,” says Michele Burton from Environment Victoria. “There are all the presents, wrapping and cards, but there’s also all the food, and typically, a lot gets wasted.”
Meat – especially red meat – leaves a hefty mark on greenhouse gas emissions and biodiversity. “We’re not suggesting you go vegetarian for Christmas, but it’s a good idea to reduce your meat consumption,” she says.
For more detailed information about the footprint of your yuletide food, see the Ethical Consumer Group’s guide to Christmas, and its new Guide to Ethical Supermarket Shopping, updated for 2012.
When it comes to gifts, Ms Burton says families could opt for a Kris Kringle, rather than buy for everyone; make or bake their own presents; or give experiences rather than things.
“If you do buy something, choose items that will last – for example, wooden toys will last much longer than plastic ones,” she says.
If the choices appear too complex, keep the details in perspective by focussing on bigger issues around the home, such as buying GreenPower, limiting consumption overall and avoiding flights. The eco-savings of obsessing over re-used wrapping paper will be well and truly shredded if you jet to Bali on Boxing Day.
On that note, Ms Burton says the holiday season is a fine time to establish patterns for the year to come. “You can look back on the year you’ve had and the choices you’ve made, and aim for your Christmas to reflect the way you want to live,” she says.
Amazing how cultures change, those of Chrisitan beliefs lament the hijacking of Christmas by commercialisation. How ironic that Christmas was hijacked by Christianity, it originally never represented the birth of Christ, but the returning of the light from the shortest day in a European winter. The pine tree a sympbol of evergreen in the middle of white snow and the candles of the returning light. However, beside that point, even before Christianity it would have never respresented a shopocalypse. St. Nicolaus ( later abbreviated to Santa Claus) brought nuts and other rare delights. Life forces were highly respected in those pagan days, the religious symbol being the tree ( which as a point of interest, was at a later date carved in stone on a church as bent over and trodden on by one of the disciples of Jesus, and subsequently the foot of this disicple was hacked away so it couldn’t down tread the tree anymore – an everlasting monument to the conflict of the hijacking of the time). At any rate, a time of year to reflect life whether from either Christian or pre-Christian beliefs and not a time to disrespect the earth we live on, by one’s own wasteful actions.