Why the planet really needs YOU this Christmas
One person’s tradition is another person’s strange
There are some pretty strange Christmas traditions practiced right around the world. Of course, they’re not strange to those who still practice them, but none-the-less, some of them are still a little bit on the unusual side.
There’s the Ukrainian practice of decorating your Christmas tree with spider webs — not for the arachnophobes amongst you. Or the Dutch tradition of placing small gifts in Children’s shoes on December 5th just in time for St. Nicholas’ Day on December 6th. If you live in Norway you might find yourself hiding all the brooms in the house on Christmas Eve, a day associated with witches and bad spirits who use the brooms as a means of transport.
Poop Logs and Fried Caterpillars
If you happen to be a child in South Africa you might find yourself dining on delicious fried caterpillars, or, for a child in Catalonia feeding a wooden Tió De Nadal (a Poop Log) with nuts and berries for the month of December only to fling him into an open fire on Christmas Eve. Or how about the tradition of kissing under a mistletoe branch, a tradition that dates back to the realms of Norse mythology and the Goddess Frigg.
Christmas traditions come in all shapes, colors, guises, and surprises.
While we don’t expect everyone to abandon the traditions of past generations there is time for a change when it comes to many modern Christmas traditions, especially the ones most harmful to the planet.
Traditions have to start somewhere, perhaps this generation is the one that will make a change for the better.
Simple changes can make all the difference
Don’t panic
Buying last-minute gifts is rarely a good idea, for several reasons. Firstly, a choice made in haste is rarely something that the recipient wants or needs. It usually comes as a means of fulfilling an obligation to the recipient without much thought or care for what the recipient — or the planet — would really wish for.
OK, it may not be easy to do, but starting a little earlier with your gift choices means that you can really consider just what it is you are buying, its origins, the materials used in its production, its final destination once it has outlived its use (if it ever had a use) and its impact on the planet.
Take your time and avoid buying in haste.
Is it built to last?
We live in an age of programmed obsolescence — things we buy are created to last only a certain period of time. Once their time is up, they’re ready for the scrapheap.
In the distant past things were built to last, to be repairable, to do the job they were designed to do over and over again. The problem with this obsolescence is that more and more of our ‘things’ end up in landfill sites, or in the case of electronic goods, being returned to impoverished communities for salvage where they end up damaging the environment for generations to come.
When choosing Christmas gifts — or gifts in general — try to imagine something that will last a lifetime, or as close as possible.
Experiences are better than stuff
There’s a seismic shift happening in the world of gift-giving. It seems that the general public is getting tired of giving and receiving stuff they don’t want or need. What this growing band of people really want are experiences.
Experiences add real meaning to their lives, they add stories to be told, and they add memories to be recounted at will. And what’s more, there are a growing number of companies who have taken the lead in this market.
One of those companies is Tinggly. Tinggly offers a huge selection of gift boxes containing hundreds of hand-selected adventures, experiences, and moments to treasure in over 100 countries around the world.
And what’s more, Tinggly prides itself on its commitment to real sustainability; for every experience undertaken Tinggly remove 33lbs (15kg) of plastic from the environment, they offset the carbon footprint by a massive 200%, all of the product packagings are made from recycled materials and environmentally-friendly inks, and finally, the team have already successfully installed trash traps in the rivers of Bali to stop toxic plastics from entering the ocean.
Wrap up smarter for the planet
Most Christmas wrapping papers, especially the metallic ones, can’t be recycled. Bad news for the planet. In fact, according to the GWP Group, 227,000 miles of wrapping paper will be used in the UK in 2019–83km2 of which will end up in the trash. Plus, for every gift packed there’s a lot of sticky tape being used, up to 40 million roles in fact. Frightening, isn’t it?
Maybe you can find alternatives to the vast amount of commercially produced wrapping paper? Plain recycled paper, newspapers, or even cloth which could then be used again for some other purpose. All it takes is a little thought and a bit of common sense.
Dear Santa — Over one billion Christmas cards
In the run-up to Christmas, we all love receiving that first beautiful card. Pretty winter scenes with fir trees and robins, covered in sparkly silver glitter and delicate plastic bows. But the bad news is that they’re a disaster for the environment.
In the UK alone, Christmas cards are playing another hazardous role when it comes to Christmas time. Did you know that over 1 billion cards will end up in bins this Christmas? That — believe it or not — is the equivalent of 33 million trees. Personally, I’d prefer it if someone planted a tree rather than sent me a card, but if you have to send a card, try to send a recycled one.
Shop in the local community
Stay local. Purchasing your gifts from local craftspeople and artisans does more than just help the local economy, it also helps the environment. Sure, the giant retail outlets have a lot more choice, probably tens of thousands of times more choice. But, that also means a lot more CO2 produced by a lot more delivery transport.
When you buy from the giant retail chains, it takes fleets of atmosphere-poisoning trains, planes, and trucks to deliver your gifts, and millions of others like them from point A to point B. Whereas, your local suppliers don’t have that transport problem, and are more likely to take a keen interest in your local environment and to be on your side should an environmental issue arise.
Handmade versus store-bought
OK, your handmade gift might not be worth a ton of money, but it contains something special that no other gift can ever contain — your time, your effort, and your passion. Priceless.
Handmade gifts also tend to be more planet-friendly. Made from more recyclable or renewable materials, less production and transport costs, and less toxic waste seeping into the natural environment. And one more thing, giving handmade gifts reinforces the bond of membership in a family or a community.
What about 12, monthly gifts?
This probably isn’t for everyone, but when I saw it I thought it was really precious. Instead of buying huge gifts for her children — gifts she knew would be forgotten and discarded after a matter of weeks — I Mom I know opted to buy 12 experience gifts, one for each month of the following year.
For one weekend every month, the family engaged in experiences together; hiking, camping, dance lessons, acting classes, pottery and art classes, canoeing, cooking a family meal together, and lots more. These weekends turned out to be like a little Christmas every month, something to look forward to, and something to bring the whole family closer together. Oh, and think of the memories you’ll create.
Scrapping the sparkles
Most modern Christmas decorations are made almost entirely from plastics — it’s not just single-use bags that are a problem. But, most of these beautiful decorations have their origins in nature; trees, garlands, mantlepiece decorations, fairy lights, table decorations, the list goes on and on.
While there aren’t many leaves on the trees in the depths of winter, there’s still a lot of natural materials that can be found freely without having to resort to mutilating living plants. There are fallen logs, ready for decoration with lush green moss and bright red berries along with a beeswax candle to make the perfect table centerpieces. Branches that can be plaited into garlands. Pine cones waiting to be painted and turned into readymade tree-decorations. Candles made from natural materials mixed with elements from nature can be completely stunning. The finished results are only limited by the expanse of your imagination.
Can I just rent a tree?
Christmas tree rental is fast becoming a thing, and it makes sense. It’s not something that may be available to everyone at present, but it’s coming to a location near you real soon. Other options are choosing potted trees that can be replanted once the Christmas season is done.
If you did buy a natural tree make sure that it gets mulched and recycled when it’s time has come.
Gift less, get more
I come from a large family — as a kid, there were 11 of us in total. That’s a lot of gifts. When we got older we realized that our yearly round of family gifting was costing us a lot of money, and not helping the environment either. Thankfully that’s where Kris Kindle (Secret Santa) came to save the day.
Instead of having to buy a ton of unnecessary, expensive, and planet-damaging presents we drew names from a hat and bought for just one person, instead of 10. More recently we added a new rule, all our choices must be environmentally-friendly as much as possible. The gifts are now more personal, more useful, and more special to each one of us.
Nature deserves a gift too
Not to put too fine a point on it, but the planet is in trouble and needs our help. Instead of buying gifts for people who don’t really need a gift — people who already have everything — buy a gift for nature in their name.
It’s now possible to give donations or certificates which benefit the planet; planting trees, removing plastics, offsetting CO2, funding conservation foundations, helping activists with their programs, there really are a thousand ways if you look around. Or for a really simple gift — which I use myself a lot — buy a couple of packets of wildflower seeds and use them as gifts. As part of the gift, ask the recipient to take a walk in nature when Spring comes and to scatter the seeds as they go. The bees will thank you for it.
One more cool way of gifting to nature is by making simple wooden bird boxes and gifting them to friends. Your friends will enjoy watching wildlife from the comfort of their home, and the birds have a warm, dry place to raise their young.
Batteries not included
Batteries are bad news for the planet. Both their production and disposal cause a lot of headaches for the environment, for thousands of years to come. When you’re choosing a gift make sure and check if it needs batteries? If it does, is there an alternative gift you can choose?
More and more devices, tools, and modes of transport rely on batteries for their very existence. That’s bad news for the environment, especially when it comes to lithium batteries. Mining lithium is one of the worst things that man can do to the planet, and unfortunately, the demand for lithium — and other damaging minerals — keeps on growing.
Regifting is not as cheap as it seams
It might sound like a cheap, miserly thing to do, but with the right intentions regifting can be a wonderful and enriching thing to do.
Perhaps you are the custodian of a prized heirloom or curiosity that has been in the family for years. The sad news is, you can’t take it with you when you go, so why not make it extra-special while you can.
Regifting something of such importance to a younger member of the family can create bonds that cross the generations. It can create stories, add an extra layer of personal importance to the item, create an unbreakable bond, and perhaps even give birth to a whole new raft of family traditions. Take a good look around, the future might be sitting on a shelf beside you.
Finally, before we all go splurging on stuff we don’t want or need, let me say this. Take your time before you do anything this Christmas. Make your gift choices based on the gift’s origin, its uses, the materials its constructed from, its lifespan, and its end life destination — where it’s going to end up and the damage it will cause to the planet.
We all know that we don’t need to spend a lot of money or destroy the planet in order to have a really great Christmas, but sometimes it’s easier just to forget for a while. Even by following a couple of the above suggestions you too can make a difference. You can’t do it all alone, none of us can. Helping the planet is a collective effort, yours, mine, and everyone else’s.
Let’s all do our bit.
