Well, the blinking lights and blackout sales have made it impossible to ignore; the holiday season is upon us! Get out the ginger snaps to be inhaled whole and the candy canes to be looked at but never eaten because it's time to celebrate! We're getting into the holiday spirit by turning the TV to the Sounds of the Seasons music channel while we arrange assorted creepy Santa heads around the house. (Don't get me wrong, my mom's Christmas decorating is lovely and relatively reserved, but it does include Santa heads. Can't get around that.)
Sounds of the Season plays various holiday songs and flips through Christmas trivia and weird images of snow and presents and stuff. The other day, this little fact popped up:
"Poinsettias are the most popular Christmas plant and the No. 1 potted flowering plant in the U.S."
Like, hold on, are they saying more popular than Christmas trees? Or does that not count as a plant? Do they mean more popular than mistletoe? Either way, I am so happy to have this information. Now I'll be the life of all the ugly Christmas sweater parties in the land, both mock hipster version and authentic old lady version.
But in all seriousness, I did hear a statistic the other day that made me squint a tad more suspiciously yet at the creepy Santa heads that represent the most genius media creation in the history of mass consumerism. Last year, Americans spent a grand total of $450 billion on Christmas. Compare this number to the $10 billion it would take to solve the world's lack of clean water for good. This information comes from the Advent Conspiracy, a Christian group that urges people to spend a little less money on material gifts and a little more to help people in need. Now, I'm not religious, but this is something I can get behind.
With similar do-goodness in mind, my mom instituted a new rule that all gifts exchanged in our family this year have to be either used, recycled, vintage, or handmade (and not by Indonesian children). In other words, nothing mass produced. With the leftover money, we'll select a charity to contribute to. Just a nice way to mix things up and feel a tad less guilty about all the excess at the same time.
There are also things that can be done to lessen the blow on the environment during all the Christmas cheer. In light of the UN climate conference going on in Copenhagen right now, we ought to do our share as they try to save the world in two short weeks. There are a few tips on how to have a more green Christmas here. As for us, we'll be wrapping our gifts with brown paper grocery bags and perhaps newspaper (with pretty ribbons, of course). We've done it in the past and I can say that it is quite stylin'.
Anyway, I don't want to seem like one of those people who stand outside Target ringing a bell and making you put on your best starting-at-something-really-important-on-the-ground routine. I'm just saying, it wouldn't hurt any of us to be a little less wasteful this year, and a little more in touch with the suffering going on in the world beyond our crackling fires and spiked nog.
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1 comment:
My favorite place to buy a gift for the person who has everything is TreePeople.org! A tree is planted in the Los Angeles area and you're sent a card dedicating the tree to your recipient of choice.
Maybe less will be wasted this year on the fact that gross income is down significantly? An up to a down?
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