Tis the Season to be Anticonsumerist

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There is something to be said for being a tight-fisted Scrooge over the holiday season, particularly when the world is so invested in making consumerism a fundamental part of celebrating.

Leading up to holidays, it is extremely hard to avoid being saturated with advertisements encouraging consumerism in some way, shape, or form. Buy more is the underlying motto, because if you don’t, you’re a Scrooge or a Grinch.

Anyone can take a strong stand against consumerism, needless waste, and capitalism by reviewing their own celebratory rites and substituting them in for ones which are more Earth-friendly and people-friendly. Let’s take a look at some of these.

The rite of gift exchange.

There are a number of factors involved in the giving of gifts. The expectation is that you need to buy gifts for all the important people in your life, wrap them up, and at the time of celebration, exchange these gifts, unwrap them, and throw away the wrapping.


The rite of celebratory eating.

There are often special meals and favourite foods enjoyed over the holiday season, with many people celebrating with various foods on the actual celebration day, leading to food wastage, leftovers, overeating, and sluggish sleeps in the afternoons.



The rite of family/friend hopping

This is when people end up celebrating more than once. Some families will end up celebrating two or three times in one day with family or friends. More gifts are needed, more food is needed, and there is less time to enjoy the day.


The rite of polite niceties

Candy canes, holiday cards, chocolate eggs, thank-you cards and so on are given out to family, friends, acquantinces, teachers and so on. It is considered terribly wude of you to not engage.


The rite of decorations


There was a time where celebrating a season meant decorating with materials collected from the land to celebrate harvests and passage of seasons. A tree would be chopped down and saved for the next season’s yule log, plants would be twisted into wreaths, seeds, fruit, root vegies would be collected and a few reserved for a decorative display and so on. Nowdays it is all about buying decorations. Bright glittery tinsel, balls, baskets, lights, foam statues and so on. Many houses have Xmas bling these days come December, and add to it with electricity consumption to power all those lights and blinking displays.


There is also the option of giving up celebratory holidays which have became about consumerist culture more than anything else. Boycott them. Go on a strike. Don’t be shy about it either. You can also do this every once in a while, or give it up completely.

Sit back and watch the social conditioning and pressure kick in. We all must conform to the holidays everyone else celebrates or else it upsets people. Conform or don’t. It’s your call but at least reconsider the impact your celebrations have on your wallet, the planet and what it is teaching your children.


#Planet_Friendly


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