Sustainability isn’t the first word that comes to mind for most when they think about Christmas time. It is a time to spend with friends and family…usually consuming, consuming, consuming. It is the busiest time of year at the shopping malls for people to buy lots of gifts, food, way too many sweats, decorations galore and of course the Christmas lights. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoy the holidays for the time off of work, the time to spend with friends and family and the time to play in the snow when we are lucky to receive snow. But I do struggle with the consumption that I find is hard to change or disrupt even in my own family. I love the idea of giving “experiences”, or recycled gifts, handmade gifts, or even I read recently about the tradition of giving books in Finland and Iceland. It is not easy to disrupt long standing traditions or behavior of consumption, in particular at this time of year. My question is, just because it is a “tradition” does that make it right, does that make us forget to question is this necessary, is this actually what we want to
teach our children to continue to do.
One tradition that we have done since our daughter was born is to spend a day with friends and their families a few weeks before Christmas and go on a Christmas Tree Hunt. This has been a great way to enjoy time in nature together, share some fresh baking, fill thermoses with coffee and hot chocolate and pick out a Charlie Brown Christmas tree from under the power lines to take home and decorate.
