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So here's another site I have found about spending in this holiday season. It was started by Canadian Mennonites: Buy Nothing Christmas. I'm not ready to buy nothing, but I am interested in the alternative suggestions they list here. There are 50, so one idea or more may be relevant to a family that isn't ready to eliminate all spending.Resources, like book suggestions and printable info, can be found here.
And on this page, Aiden Schlichting Enns writes:
PEOPLE CAN CHANGE
"How can we, as ordinary people, change society for the better? I'm not a politician, lobbyist, professor or big-time consultant (I'm currently a graduate student and a journalist). I'm tired of feeling like I can't do anything.
"So, even if it's insignificant, I've decided to participate in a Buy Nothing Christmas. It's an experiment - I'm curious to see what happens. I think it's a great way to challenge our own consumer mindset, to put our faith into action, to offer a prophetic "no" to unfettered free-market consumer capitalism, and an excellent way to generate some good dinner-table discussions on the topic of economics, politics, religion, and what we're not getting each other for Christmas."
I like Aiden's observations. . . .reminds me of Buy Nothing Day.
9 comments:
Jan, such a terrific post - that icon of Christ with those words - i downloaded that one to look at every time i start up my computer :) Our family is not buying gifts because of financial constraints & with many others in this same boat i'm thinking that the concept of "buy nothing xmas" will become more of a neccesity than an alternative. And this is a good thing!
We are scaling WAY back this year. I'll give each child a book and a hand-knitted item. This will be the third year the children and I shop for a child in need as a gift to my husband (his idea). I am up in the air about cards this year, hate to drop that connection to a few people in particular.
Thanks, Roberta.
Songbird, I love sending Christmas cards with our Christmas letter that every member of our family contributes to, so I'm not giving that up yet. I've moved too much in my life so that Christmas cards are often the only way I stay in touch with some people from faraway. Plus, our relatives live far off from us, too.
Very thought provoking.
One year I had planned to give very small gifts to the grandkids and much larger gifts in their names to Heifer International. You should have heard the hue and cry that arose from my extended family.
I need to send the icon to all of them.
This year, the annual Christmas letter will go out, and I am going to make lots of presents this year. I think that will be much more meaningful, and more in the spirit of Christ's love than just tossing STUFF at each other.
I was at my mother-in-law's birthday party tonight -- so nice, all of us who live in Canada were there.
My son's birthday is December 24th. He said to me tonight, what he'd really like for Christmas would be if I'd make him my famous meatloaf and a tray of Chelsea buns, the kind I used to make for Christmas breakfast when we all still lived together.
Absolutely. He'll be 27 this year, and I really like him.
For the last couple of years I've found Christmas very difficult -- haven't shopped at all, and cooked and gone to my sister-in-law's. It's all still Christmas anyway. Thanks for the post and the links, Jan.
Thanks Jan
This is good. Difficult, but good.
This is a good post and something that has been on my mind a lot this year.
I really get into this post, and like Roberta, I really love the icon.
We got rid of the Xmas junk some years ago. The whole materialistic extravaganza seems pretty secularized to me and has only marginal connections to the Gospel message.
Thanks for inviting us into the Advent Conspiracy, too.
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