Mendolonium

And now I shall attempt to tackle a subject more controversial than religion or politics…Christmas gifts.

We are fortunate to have a very generous family and we all received many lovely presents this year.  Unfortunately, we also received far, far more than we are comfortable with.  It seems a bit ridiculous to complain about the an abundance of gifts – a problem of rich, first-world privilege and, in truth, it is a problem that many other people in our own county and throughout the wold would be thrilled to have.  However, excessive consumerism and the promotion of a materialistic culture is, in part, the very reason why so many others in the world are mired in poverty.  Now I am not about to suggest that we celebrate Christmas by all exchanging nothing but socks hand knitted from wool spun from dryer lint whilst we sit around in our unheated house nibbling on homegrown carrots.  Both Jeff and I view Christmas as a celebration and as such believe that it should be a time of feast, decorations, and even presents.  It is simply that we want the materialistic aspects (i.e., the presents) to be done in moderation with a focus on sustainability.  The thing is, we all know that while it is simple to say we want such a thing it is much harder to implement in practice.

I knew we were in trouble on Christmas morning after we had opened all the presents at our home and I realized that we had received more than enough good things, yet we still had another, larger, Christmas celebration to attend that eventing.  Watching Thomas tear through presents on Christmas evening began to make me feel sad rather than joyous.  I tried to enforce a rule to go up and say “thank-you” to the gift giver after each present (which Thomas bless his little heart was sweetly doing), but somehow the present opening seemed to proceed at an ever more frantic pace and the thank-yous dropped off as the night went on.   And I felt embarrassed at the end of the evening, when it was clear that we would never fit all the leftover food we had brought along with all the presents into our car alone.  Christmas really all came crashing down on me the morning of December 26th when I steeped out of our bedroom, walked into the living room, and almost cried.  It looked like a bomb from Target had gone off.  While our little family of four use reusable fabric wrapping between the wrapping paper from presents people had brought and the cardboard boxes from Amazon our recycling container was overflowing.  It upset me so much that I actually left Thomas with my parents, packed up the baby, and raced off to the store to return a few things.  While out I thought about  what future Christmases might entail (if each child gets 5 – 10 things from each seat of grandparents and we have another 15 Christmases or so that will be hundreds of items coming into our house over the years).   The thought of it was overwhelming, both from the standpoint of resource use and from the perspective of having to find a place to put it all.

We have a lovely two bedroom house.  It is relatively small but it fits our needs perfectly.  There simply isn’t room for hundreds of more toys and clothes, and books.  Yes, one can even have too many books, which I adore, but we simply have no where to put them all.*  One might say that some toys will break and that we can donate the old toys but that’s not how we live our lives.  Jeff and I try very hard to buy durable long-lasting toys for the kids that will not wear out.  (I expect that Henry will be passing his Christmas present from this year down to his children).  We are also not done having children so we will be keeping all the toys the boy grow out of for their younger brothers and/or sisters.  I also very much want to teach our children that life, including celebrations in life, such as Christmas, is about so much more than material goods.   So effective Christmas 2010 we are going to make some changes.

• There will be no traveling on Christmas day.  There were some family health issues that necessitated the two celebrations on Christmas day this year, but regardless we will not be repeating it next year.  It was simply too stressful.  I actually think it would be much more fun for everyone to have several “Christmas” celebrations scatted throughout the week or so of the actual holiday so that’s what we will encourage.
• We will set aside some time on Christmas day four just the four of us:  Jeff, Thomas, Henry, and me – most likely first thing in the morning.   Based on everyone’s schedules we will set a time (say 9:00 or 10:00 am) after which we will be happy to host any and all friends and family.  Before our guests arrive we will open stockings and a present or two with the kids as a special time for just the four of us.
• The food, while plentiful and celebratory, will be toned down – Christmas dinner will not be on the scale of Thanksgiving.  As much as I love spending all day cooking in the kitchen (and I really do) I want to spend most of Christmas day relaxing, hanging out with my family, and watching my kids enjoy their new presents.  An overabundance of food can also lead to waste as I saw this year when I ended up having to throw away food that simply could not be eaten in a reasonable amount of time.
• Jeff and I will strive to make or buy used – all of our gifts, save perhaps a few special things that will be purchased from sustainable producers.  This means that Jeff and I now, in January, are thinking and planning about what we want to give everyone next year.  We will encourage the kids to make/create gifts as well.

That’s all well and good for us, but what about everyone else.  While we recognize that what everyone else does we are thinking about some options:

• Do nothing and just return/donate that which we don’t want/need. This is what we’ve done the past few years but it is not going to work anymore.  Buying something made overseas, wrapping it in disposable (but non-recyclable paper), and then putting something back in the car to return/donate seems to me to be a horrible squander of resources.  While I am sure Miss Manners would disapprove and tell me to simply thank the gift-giver and quietly deal with it on my own ,I think the problems of climate change and resource depletion far outweigh considerations of etiquette.   I also don’t want my family to use their hard earned money on things that I will just return or donate.  And quite frankly running about town doing so is not my idea of fun.
• Simply tell our friends and family to keep things low-key.**  Make sure that they know we appreciate and enjoy used and/or homemade gifts.   I think it would be great to also give gifts to others (i.e., charity) in our name.  I think the boys would get a kick out of a “gift” of animals to a family in need.   And in the end, the truth is that no gifts are even necessary.  It is special just to put up a tree, to bake platters of goodies, and to spend time with the ones we love.  Happily, Thomas feels the same way.  Last week he was a bit sad that Christmastime was over and so he came up with a plan*** .  We would build a fire in the fireplace using our Christmas tree as fuel****.  Then Jeff would sit in one of our living room chairs and hold Thomas.  I would sit in the other chair and hold Henry.  Jeff would drink hot chocolate.  Thomas and I would drink warm chocolate.  Henry would abstain as he is a baby.  We would drink our respective beverages, tell stories, and sit around the fire.  We implemented Thomas’ plan (save for Henry – he went to bed at 7:30) and it was one of the best nights ever with Thomas.  He was so happy and utterly adorable with little pink cheeks smiling in the firelight.  It really drove home the point that Christmastime is much more than just presents for him and I want to make sure we keep it that way.
• Impose a limit on presents. We already have  rule against electronic presents/presents with batteries.  The limit we have been considering is two physical gifts per child plus one shared physical gift (between the kids or family).  Things like a children’s museum membership or a day of fun with the grandparents would be exempt from this rule.  Between us, the grandparents, aunts, and uncles this would still give the kids on the order of ten presents each to open – hardly deprivation.

Do you have more ideas for reducing consumption but keeping the fun?  I would be interested in hearing everyone’s thoughts about these issues.

I truly enjoyed Christmas as a child, but as an adult I can’t remember any of the presents I ever received, except a microscope when I was ten (Oh how I wanted that microscope).  What I do remember was the year we hiked into a national forest and cut down two Christmas trees (with a permit, I hope).  I remember making dozens of spritz cookies with my mom’s old, reliable cookie “shooter”.  And I remember the Christmas that I was in the hospital with pneumonia and my parents held off celebrating and opening presents until I could come home.  Those are the kind of memories (save the pneumonia) that I want for my boys and for us.

* My dream home (in my mind) has an honest-to-goodness library with floor to ceiling wood bookshelves, a fireplace, reading lamps, and cozy chairs to curl up in.  I honestly think that if I had a house with such a room and with a big, warm kitchen/pantry the rest of the house could be a shack and I wouldn’t care.

** Hey look!  My friends and family read this blog so I just did that.  Sneaky.

*** Jeff taught Thomas the concept of a plan last week and, boy, did Thomas pick up on that one quickly.  Now we hear, “I have a plan!”

**** We actually have a tradition (eight years!) of cutting up and burning our Christmas tree in the fireplace.  It all stems from Christmas 2001 when Jeff lost his wedding ring the same night he put lights on the Christmas tree.  We searched high and low for that ring but it was nowhere to be found.  We feared it was stuck in the Christmas tree and didn’t want to risk accidentally throwing the ring away so we burned our Christmas tree piece by piece in search of the elusive ring of gold.  We didn’t find the ring then (Jeff’s brother actually found it in our couch three years later – and yes, we had looked there) but a tradition was born and we have re-used our Christmas tree as firewood ever since.

This entry was posted on Friday, January 8th, 2010 at 5:03 pm and is filed under The Family Mendolo, Theodore, Thomas. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.