Stuffing the Stockings with Less Stuff

It is easy to get caught up in holiday consumerism. It's not unusual for people to find themselves spending money on decorations, or rushing through thrift-stores searching for something, anything!, to get for friends and family. We like holidays because they offer us ritual, connection with people, and something to celebrate. But, even when the ritual involves buying unnecessary, excessive presents, we can find ourselves participating in that ritual—and it may not necessarily be a ritual we would have consciously chosen.


So how does one celebrate the holidays without breaking the bank, or giving in to the rituals of consumerism? Simple. Develop new rituals. This year, you don’t have to rack up credit card debt or get swept up in the season’s commercialism. Instead, consider creating holidays that instill more meaning into the season and encourage more sharing, laughter, creativity, and personal renewal.

According to the National Retail Federation, shoppers spent a total of $441.97 billion during the 2008 holiday season. 40% of Americans start their holiday shopping before Halloween. According to the Nilson Report, Americans’ credit card debt, by the end of 2008, reached $972.73 billion, up 1.12% from 2007, with the average credit card debt per household totaling $8,329. These numbers point to the urgency of our revisioning consumer habits. What if—instead of buying “stuff” for holiday gifts—we gave gifts of time, gifts of experience and gifts of charity?

Gifts of time include things like babysitting, car washing, a month of taking out the garbage, doing the dishes, shoveling the snow, cleaning the cat box, dog walking or pet sitting, or a hiking trip. When I was a young mother, my best friend always gave me one day of child-care a week. Oh, how I looked forward to that day each week when I could have “my own” time!—a respite from the demands of parenting two active toddlers.

Gifts of experience include things like an offer to teach a skill such as canning, ballroom dancing, knitting, or swimming. I often give my horsy friends a gift certificate for a dressage lesson. Or, I gift them with an afternoon of hiking and wildcrafting in the backcountry.

Gifts of charity might include a donation to a cause in the name of a family member. Some families make gifts to charities and then present family members with a coupon or card indicating the gift was made in their name. Or, you could support a homeless shelter or protect an acre of rainforest. You could designate an amount of money to donate to charity and let your children pick which causes will receive it. Older children can research organizations that match your family’s values.

And, of course, there is the option of homemade gifts. Homemade salsa, jam and baked goods all taste much better than their commercial counter-parts. Include, of course, the recipe. Or, you can mix tins of dried, wildcrafted teas such as lavender, mint or rose hips. Include a mesh tea strainer. One of my favorites is a mix of lavender, rose petals and clover.

Being creative and keeping your mind focused on the real meaning of gift-giving will help you keep the culture's "buy more" influence at bay. Keep in mind, too, that the efforts you make to curb your holiday spending now will free up more cash for the coming year. And that's the best holiday gift you can give yourself and your family.

The Scholar in a Republic

On June 30, 1881, Wendell Phillips delivered an address to Harvard University entitled The Scholar in a Republic. He said: "I urge on college-bred men, that, as a class, they fail in republican duty when they allow others to lead in the agitation of the great social questions, which stir and educate the age."

One hundred and thirty years later, I think we still need to be reminded of the same advise. Take, for example, Glenn Beck's pronouncement this week of 350.org as a "communist conspiracy". In reality, of course. 350.org has done some of the best organizing and educating around climate change on the planet. Far from a global conspiracy, it is providing ways for everyday people to plug into the green energy movement and become inspired. And, it's spearheaded by a true scholar, Bill McKibben.

Back in the late 1960's, when I was hammering out my graduate degree, Herbert Marcuse awakened me to the reality that I could be both an academic and an activist. In the wake of the McCarthy era, that wasn't popular sentiment. But, Marcuse raised the bar and set the example.

Later, I learned about Scott Nearing: another academic-activist. He was exactly the type of scholar that Wendell Phillips was talking about. He got called a "communist", too (as did Marcuse) but he just kept teaching, writing and speaking. They refused to sit idly back and allow "others to lead in the agitation of the great social questions, which stir and educate the age."

Well, that's a good description of McKibben. He's doing something--a whole lot, actually-- for the world. And the "something" that he is doing is deeply informed by scholarship. He is not sitting back and allowing "others to lead in the agitation of the great social questions." He is performing what Wendell Phillips would have called his republican duty.

We are living in a period when there is a whole lot of "agitation of the great social issues" going on. There are droves of people tendering public comment on things about which they know nothing. Opinion abounds. Intellectual engagement gets pushed to the back burner and emotional appeals sell papers.

It's hard for a citizenry to remain informed when special interest propaganda is cloaked as "information". Most Americans are uni-lingual and are, ipso facto, confined to reading news that is printed in English. For those who are multi-lingual, a quick tour through some major European newspapers provides a very different view of America's "agitation of the great social questions".

I, for one, would like to think that the US will value it's academic-activists as we navigate these next few, turbulent years. I would like to think that we will recognize their commitment to informing their activism by scholarship. And, I would like to think that, as a society, we can return to a rational, measured dialectic instead of ill informed emotional rants.

Drawing a Line in the Sand

Where do we draw the line in the sand? Where do we say, "enough is enough"? At what point do we stop simply signing petitions and, instead, start fighting back against a culture that is killing us all? Egypt has set an example. Wisconsin has, too.

In his 2006 book, Endgame, Derrick Jensen reminds us that if we are "propping up industrialized civilization", we are ipso facto promoting violence. He further reminds us that "Civilization is not redeemable. This culture will not undergo any sort of voluntary transformation to a sane and sustainable way of living. If we do not put a halt to it, civilization will continue to eviscerate the vast majority of humans and to degrade the planet until it (civilization, and probably the planet) collapses."

Jensen's not a lone wolf. There are plenty of people saying this. And, it's not even a particularly recent theme. Herbert Marcuse, for example, sang the same song in the late 1960's in An Essay on Liberation when he argued that traditional conceptions of human freedom have been rendered obsolete by the development of advanced industrial society. Marcuse closes the essay by saying that "the construction of a free society would create new incentives for work." He clarifies that "in exploitive societies, the so-called work instinct is mainly the introjected necessity to perform productively in order to earn a living." The One Dimensional Man.

The wheels are coming off of the wagon. Trying to keep putting them back on is like sticking our fingers in a hole in the dike: an unsustainable, "little picture" attempt to "solve" the problem. It's time to draw a line in the sand. It's time to realize that there really isn't any "fixing" the corporate whore that we call "the government". As Marcuse wrote, "The Great Refusal takes a variety of forms."