Here’s our annual
Black Friday “How to Opt Out of Christmas” piece.
We opted out of Christmas years ago. It wasn’t the money; we
simply wanted release from the stress, crowds, and mindless consumerism
associated with the most intensely crass and secular of all American holidays.
Spare us the Babe in the Manger speeches; Christmas in America has more to do
with Adam Smith than Baby Jesus.
We decided to reinvent December as a month of dining with
friends, making contact with family, and consuming fun rather than getting
caught up in rituals of reciprocity and gluttony. The breaking point came about
12 years ago, when our nieces were still children. One Christmas morning they
were literally swamped under a mound
of gifts. (Seriously! The wrapping paper debris was piled to twice the height
of the youngest.) Our nieces no sooner opened one present than another was
thrust in front of them so that every relative under the sun could snap a photo
of the bewildered lasses. Soon, they were dazed and numb. As clichéd as it
sounds, by mid-afternoon they were having more fun with the wrapping paper and
boxes than with the presents. (The boxes made a nice makeshift fort.) And
here’s the worst part: the wreckage represented expenditures of hundreds of
dollars, much of it from folks that could have used the cash for much better
purposes.
Christmas was even more crass when we bought for adults. It had
degenerated into a zero sum game–you buy me the item on page 72 of the L.L.
Bean catalog and I’ll buy you one from page 104. Christmas shopping sucks in
two types of adults: those who can afford to buy things and have all they need (but
nonetheless invent things to want “in the spirit of the season”); and those who
shouldn’t engage in consumer frenzy, yet are pressured into doing so. If you
fall into the second category, for heaven’s sake stop! Consider this sobering
statistic–if you rack up $6,000 on your credit card and try to pay it off by
making the minimum payment, it will take roughly 54 years to do so even if you
never use the card again! Fa, la, la, indeed! In trying to conform to
manufactured images of seasonal jollity you have placed yourself in economic
thralldom akin to that of 19th-century sharecroppers.
It’s our seasonal prayer that none of you are in that
sinking boat. But even if you have plenty of dough, there’s simply no reason to
put up with the stress and the madness. Just say no. Here’s a how-to-guide for
opting out.
1. Step One: The
Power of Guilt. We must ask ourselves how Christmas got to be such a mess
in the first place. The answer is simple: We’ve been sold a bill of literal and
metaphorical goods on what a “perfect” Christmas is supposed to be like. Don’t
underestimated how powerful that imagery is. To counter it, you need to present
an equally powerful counter image.
As Christmas approaches, subtly drop remarks to loved ones such
as “We have so much and there are others who have so little. What do you think
about scaling way back and making donations to charity instead?” My guess is
that about three-quarters of your friends and relatives will breathe a sigh of
relief and get on board immediately. Your job is to follow up by continuing to
drop reminders. Don’t call a week before Christmas and say, “We’re no giving
presents this year, right?” Instead, make a plan in the next few days, and
follow up in a week by reminding down with the plan that they said they wanted
to give to charity. Tell them you are writing a check for a donation in their
name and ask which charity they’d like you to support.
2. Step Two: Phasing
In the Plan. There will be some people on your list who won’t buy in
immediately. One or two may even feel hurt and assume you don’t care enough to
buy them something. You need to go gentle with these folks. Start by scaling back
instead of going cold turkey. Appeal to their soft side. Do they love animals?
In addition to a modest gift, get a
really nice card and insert a Heifer International brochure with a note that
you’ve given a donation in their name. It may take a few years before these
folks stop the gift cycle altogether, but they will.
3. Step Three: Be
True to Your Principles. It’s not enough to say you want to spend time with
friends and family instead of gift buying; you need to do it! Make sure you
schedule dinners out (or potlucks in) with close friends and family. The goal
is to make the holidays joyous, not to become the Grinch.
4. Step Four: Replace
Consumer Goods with Thoughtful Ones. What people really want during the
holidays is a reminder that you care. A plate of home-baked cookies can say
this louder than an item plucked from a catalog. So too can cleaning someone’s
gutters, fixing a squeaky door, or taking their car for an oil change. Are you
craft-oriented? Phoenix makes earrings that cost next to nothing to make, but
resonate with friends more than those $50 mass-produced “holiday” earrings you
see all over the country. I’ve written a few stories and songs that I’ve
shared. Want to do something really simple? Rent “It’s a Wonderful Life” and
watch it with someone you care about. Provide the buttered popcorn. The biggest
gift you can give is your time!
5. Step Five: Buy
Your Kids a Pen Pal. If you have little ones, it’s hard to eliminate gifts
totally, but the U.N. and other agencies have programs that allow you to
sponsor a child abroad. Do this for your kids and spend part of Christmas with
books, pictures, and maps that illustrate where their pen pal lives. Help your
kids write a letter to that child. Follow it up in the weeks to come with
language lessons, food, and other such items. I had pen pals as a kid and it
made me think about the world. I remember a correspondent from Peru way more
than I remember most of my toys.
6. Step Six: Remember
the Box Rule. Overindulge children and you run the risk of overwhelming
them (or having them grow up to be pampered brats!). Kids need to exercise
their imaginations more than they need some toy from China that will be broken
by Easter. Buy and make things in which they can participate, not merely
consume. The box fort was fun. So too are time-tested things that last: Lincoln
logs, blocks, Legos, Slinky, bikes, fantasy dolls, train sets, interactive
books, musical instruments…. Google “top ten toys of all time” and you’ll find
none of the glitzy über-expensive “hot” toys of this or any other Christmas.
Those things are just ads-of-the-moment that will fade from consciousness as
soon as the latest “next big thing” comes along (and proves not to be the next big thing!)
7. Step Seven: Treat
Yourself in December. Take some of the dough you’re not spending on
prezzies and go out. Take in a concert or a show. Fun is always a good antidote
for stress!
8. Step into the
Light: If you live in the North, the stretch between Thanksgiving and
Ground Hog’s Day is filled with (way too much) darkness. Turn this time into
something pagan: festivals of light. Go for hikes in the daylight and gather
pinecones, bittersweet, pine boughs, and other such things to make into
Christmas decorations. We made an “Electric Forest” one year–an unsightly welter
of pine boughs through which we strung dollar-store lights. It was as ugly a
hound dog’s fanny, but it’s a memory over which we laugh years later. Other
light-themed events include taking short drives to see electric displays,
after-sunset window shopping, bonfires, and hitting an after-hours spot (ice
cream shop for kids, cafes and bars for adults) in which the darkness is
tempered by holiday or atmospheric lights).
9. Step Nine: Replace
Old Rituals with New Ones. Okay, I admit that If I hear “Silent Night” at a
mall one more time, I may spew. I loathe Christmas carols, plastic reindeer,
and blow-up lawn displays. But I’d be the last to say that rituals are bad. If
you dislike the old ones, make some new ones. We buy a new tree ornament every
year, label it, and try to recall when we bought it when it comes out of
storage. We also have some invented holidays, such as Moosemas on December 16,
which is celebrated by eating clam chowder and drinking Scotch. A small ritual
is walking amidst the downtown lights on Christmas Eve after the stores have
closed. Another is a short walk in the woods behind the house on late Christmas
morning. Still another is playing CDs of English and Scottish carols that we’ve
not heard a billion times. Our most cherished is an annual pre-Christmas dinner
at a restaurant with our dearest friends.
10. Step Ten: Make a
Wish. Some families may find it impossible to eliminate Christmas presents
altogether. Fair enough. But let’s not confuse quantity with quality. Even if
you have kids, there’s nothing wrong with limiting their desires. Break out The
Rolling Stones and listen to “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” until it
sinks in. Instead of buying everything under the sun, ask people in your lives
to set priorities. If you could only get one thing, what would you really like? (If you have kids, ask for
a list of three or four and tell them you’ll ask Santa to bring one of them so that he doesn’t run out
of gifts for other children.)
11. Socks are not
Stinky! Everyone loves to open presents. It’s horribly environmentally
unsound, but a certain degree of debris is part of Christmas. So who says the
stuff inside has to cost an arm, a leg, and a kidney? Sock gifts are a lot of
fun–dollar store Etch-a-Sketches, crayons, and wind-up toys for kids,
inexpensive foodstuffs for adults, card games to share…. You can get very
creative about sock gifts; you can also fill one for a fraction of what it
costs to provide gifts that will soon be forgotten.
12. Step Twelve: Make
Christmas all about the Food. When you ask most people to name their
favorite holiday, it’s usually Thanksgiving. Why not? It’s about food, family,
and a relaxed pace. So make Christmas into a second Thanksgiving. Prepare foods
that take a long time to make. Buy a really, really good bottle of wine. Have a
multi-course meal that unfolds over several hours. And, above all, share it
with friends and family. Don’t forget to mention how lucky you are to have so
much when others have so little.
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