Deconstructing Christmas
by Josephine Laing
For those of you who have already done this, isn't it amazingly wonderful? Frank and I still get caught up in a tiny bit of the gift giving frenzy each year, but the giant monster that it once was, ripping through our lives and our pocketbooks every year has shamefacedly excused itself and left us for good.
In it's hay-day, though, it was extreme. Both of us come from big families. We'd be with one set of folks in the morning and the other in the evening, each consisting of multiple family groups with about ten to fifteen adults or more and lots of kids. And, of course, everyone needed to receive, "a little something." I look back now and wonder what kind of a consumerism "snow job" was that?
So, we actively started "Deconstructing Christmas" in my family first. After dinner on Thanksgiving, we would all pick a name out of a hat. Whoever's name you pulled was the one person you would get a gift for. That way everyone got at least one gift. It worked pretty well except that my dad couldn't resist and generally got everyone something. Bless him. But at least it was more moderate then it had previously been.
Then, with Frank's family, we started giving charitable contributions on behalf of each other. Typically these are for organizations that help other people who are less privileged then ourselves. And that is what the adults exchange. But we decided that the children could still receive presents until the age of eighteen. Then somehow the age delineation spread to twenty-something, and now, we're finally cutting it off this year, since the youngest has turned eighteen. What a relief it is for everyone to no longer have to procure and travel with tons of parcels, or else buy and wrap stuff once you're there, or stand in long lines at the post office to send little gifties hundreds or thousands of miles away.
These days, it's all about the many holiday dishes that we lovingly plan and prepare together for each other to enjoy. We usually have a few fun outings to museums or botanical gardens and maybe work on a jig-saw puzzle at night with a nice hot tea or a cocoa for the kids.
With regards to friends and coworkers, the "White Elephant" gift parties are fun. And in my women's groups I often make up a big batch of seasoning and put it in tiny jars that I've collected with a nice label and some ribbon. Or else I'll gather and dry lavender sprigs for the bath or rub together mugwort smudge wands, or help pick a neighborhood tree and bring a basketful of persimmons. Those are all heartfelt and feel feel good inside and they gently side step the wave of mass consumerism.
I'm sure that by now all of you are well aware of the cruel working conditions and below subsistence level wages that people in China producing consumer goods experience. Many of them, including children, work in what can be considered slave labor conditions. The work is hard and repetitive, often toxic and never ending. And these are people that I'm talking about, like you and me.
China produces huge ocean tankers full of cheap consumer trinkets destined for American markets everyday. These tankers have been coming across the Pacific day in and day out for decades. Resin or plastic holy figurines, cheap breakable gizmos, technological games and robotic play-toys up the yazoo, along with some of the world's finest fabric art, all of this arrives by the boat load everyday. And China's exquisite inexpensive textiles, quilts, dust ruffles and silk tapestries are usually done by hand by young girls working only for their keep who then loose their sharp eyesight to the strain in just a few years time and are subsequently set adrift to find other work in their big cities. And what's the root cause of this? Well, our hunger for cheap consumer goods.
When I first saw those impeccable textiles from China years and years ago, I was lured in by the bargain. The women of my family did similar needle work, to occupy their time during the long subzero winter hours on the farm. So I recognized the quality and snatched up a white cotton eyelet designed dust ruffle and two pillow cases. They are beautiful and I have them to this day. But knowing from experience the timed involved in creating fabric art of this nature, I couldn't help but wonder how it was produced so inexpensively. Then I found out and decided I couldn't support that corrupt system with my money, which represents my own energy, anymore. So, now I admire China's beautiful handiwork and send blessings to those girls and prayers for their lives to be fulfilling and joyous, but I don't participate in their physical exploitation with my dollars.
And China's not the only one, unless the goods are labeled "fair trade," the workers are most likely getting the shaft. Cheap wood carvings from Malaysia, woven silks from India, the carbon footprint, the toxic working conditions, I don't want to play that game anymore. And where did all these underpaid workers come from? Well, from villages where mostly they were living sustainable lives until someone came along and said, "You need a boom box and some tennis shoes."
In the last hundred years, happy, whole, self-contained and sustainable ancient cultures have suddenly been made to feel inferior and poor, often infected by a single sighting of a watch and some sunglasses. Helena Norberg-Hodge witnessed personally this type of cultural devastation over a twenty year period of time in Ladakh. Her very moving and beautiful book Ancient Futures, Learning From Ladakh, tells the tale and describes in detail the fully-functioning, well-balanced and beautiful life the Ladakhi people of the Himalayan region of Kashmir enjoyed for millennia. And she also relates how quickly it disintegrated and fell to ruin over consumerism.
So, I'm out. I don't want to be responsible for that. This holiday is not about stuff. It's about love. It's about holding each other through the long dark nights and trusting that spring and her abundance will come again.
And though I may travel to be with family and those I love, I'm definitely not going to play the cheap trinkets game anymore. It costs too much for the rest of my family, the humanity one, and I don't want them to have to pay. Plus who likes big box stores anyway. Where once there was a field with gophers and hawks and a creek and maybe even a fox, now there is a giant parking lot, stinky cars, fluorescent lights and tons and tons of cheap plastic stuff, destined all too soon for the dump, and all of which polluted our air and disrupted formerly sustainable lifestyles to make and deliver. They call it "the malling of America." I call it the mauling of the sustainable world. No thanks.
Instead I'll leave the car where it is and go outside to my lemon grass bush. Or maybe I'll walk along the roadside and find some nice late season dried mugwort leaves and pull them from the stem for dream pillows. Or I'll sort through my jars and decorate up some nice labels for fresh roasted walnuts. Or I'll go out and meet a new neighbor and help her pick her tree so she can have gifts right from her own backyard to share with her friends. And If I really feel the need and simply must do it, I'll go to one of our local holiday craft sales and buy some organic homemade herbal skin lotion or a beautiful set of note-cards made by a friend instead.
Now that feels more like Christmas time to me.
© 2011 Josephine Laing
For those of you who have already done this, isn't it amazingly wonderful? Frank and I still get caught up in a tiny bit of the gift giving frenzy each year, but the giant monster that it once was, ripping through our lives and our pocketbooks every year has shamefacedly excused itself and left us for good.
In it's hay-day, though, it was extreme. Both of us come from big families. We'd be with one set of folks in the morning and the other in the evening, each consisting of multiple family groups with about ten to fifteen adults or more and lots of kids. And, of course, everyone needed to receive, "a little something." I look back now and wonder what kind of a consumerism "snow job" was that?
So, we actively started "Deconstructing Christmas" in my family first. After dinner on Thanksgiving, we would all pick a name out of a hat. Whoever's name you pulled was the one person you would get a gift for. That way everyone got at least one gift. It worked pretty well except that my dad couldn't resist and generally got everyone something. Bless him. But at least it was more moderate then it had previously been.
Then, with Frank's family, we started giving charitable contributions on behalf of each other. Typically these are for organizations that help other people who are less privileged then ourselves. And that is what the adults exchange. But we decided that the children could still receive presents until the age of eighteen. Then somehow the age delineation spread to twenty-something, and now, we're finally cutting it off this year, since the youngest has turned eighteen. What a relief it is for everyone to no longer have to procure and travel with tons of parcels, or else buy and wrap stuff once you're there, or stand in long lines at the post office to send little gifties hundreds or thousands of miles away.
These days, it's all about the many holiday dishes that we lovingly plan and prepare together for each other to enjoy. We usually have a few fun outings to museums or botanical gardens and maybe work on a jig-saw puzzle at night with a nice hot tea or a cocoa for the kids.
With regards to friends and coworkers, the "White Elephant" gift parties are fun. And in my women's groups I often make up a big batch of seasoning and put it in tiny jars that I've collected with a nice label and some ribbon. Or else I'll gather and dry lavender sprigs for the bath or rub together mugwort smudge wands, or help pick a neighborhood tree and bring a basketful of persimmons. Those are all heartfelt and feel feel good inside and they gently side step the wave of mass consumerism.
I'm sure that by now all of you are well aware of the cruel working conditions and below subsistence level wages that people in China producing consumer goods experience. Many of them, including children, work in what can be considered slave labor conditions. The work is hard and repetitive, often toxic and never ending. And these are people that I'm talking about, like you and me.
China produces huge ocean tankers full of cheap consumer trinkets destined for American markets everyday. These tankers have been coming across the Pacific day in and day out for decades. Resin or plastic holy figurines, cheap breakable gizmos, technological games and robotic play-toys up the yazoo, along with some of the world's finest fabric art, all of this arrives by the boat load everyday. And China's exquisite inexpensive textiles, quilts, dust ruffles and silk tapestries are usually done by hand by young girls working only for their keep who then loose their sharp eyesight to the strain in just a few years time and are subsequently set adrift to find other work in their big cities. And what's the root cause of this? Well, our hunger for cheap consumer goods.
When I first saw those impeccable textiles from China years and years ago, I was lured in by the bargain. The women of my family did similar needle work, to occupy their time during the long subzero winter hours on the farm. So I recognized the quality and snatched up a white cotton eyelet designed dust ruffle and two pillow cases. They are beautiful and I have them to this day. But knowing from experience the timed involved in creating fabric art of this nature, I couldn't help but wonder how it was produced so inexpensively. Then I found out and decided I couldn't support that corrupt system with my money, which represents my own energy, anymore. So, now I admire China's beautiful handiwork and send blessings to those girls and prayers for their lives to be fulfilling and joyous, but I don't participate in their physical exploitation with my dollars.
And China's not the only one, unless the goods are labeled "fair trade," the workers are most likely getting the shaft. Cheap wood carvings from Malaysia, woven silks from India, the carbon footprint, the toxic working conditions, I don't want to play that game anymore. And where did all these underpaid workers come from? Well, from villages where mostly they were living sustainable lives until someone came along and said, "You need a boom box and some tennis shoes."
In the last hundred years, happy, whole, self-contained and sustainable ancient cultures have suddenly been made to feel inferior and poor, often infected by a single sighting of a watch and some sunglasses. Helena Norberg-Hodge witnessed personally this type of cultural devastation over a twenty year period of time in Ladakh. Her very moving and beautiful book Ancient Futures, Learning From Ladakh, tells the tale and describes in detail the fully-functioning, well-balanced and beautiful life the Ladakhi people of the Himalayan region of Kashmir enjoyed for millennia. And she also relates how quickly it disintegrated and fell to ruin over consumerism.
So, I'm out. I don't want to be responsible for that. This holiday is not about stuff. It's about love. It's about holding each other through the long dark nights and trusting that spring and her abundance will come again.
And though I may travel to be with family and those I love, I'm definitely not going to play the cheap trinkets game anymore. It costs too much for the rest of my family, the humanity one, and I don't want them to have to pay. Plus who likes big box stores anyway. Where once there was a field with gophers and hawks and a creek and maybe even a fox, now there is a giant parking lot, stinky cars, fluorescent lights and tons and tons of cheap plastic stuff, destined all too soon for the dump, and all of which polluted our air and disrupted formerly sustainable lifestyles to make and deliver. They call it "the malling of America." I call it the mauling of the sustainable world. No thanks.
Instead I'll leave the car where it is and go outside to my lemon grass bush. Or maybe I'll walk along the roadside and find some nice late season dried mugwort leaves and pull them from the stem for dream pillows. Or I'll sort through my jars and decorate up some nice labels for fresh roasted walnuts. Or I'll go out and meet a new neighbor and help her pick her tree so she can have gifts right from her own backyard to share with her friends. And If I really feel the need and simply must do it, I'll go to one of our local holiday craft sales and buy some organic homemade herbal skin lotion or a beautiful set of note-cards made by a friend instead.
Now that feels more like Christmas time to me.
© 2011 Josephine Laing