Only 21 shopping days left till hypochrismas. Here’s how I rolled over the past week.
Last Friday on GoodEvaning, I wrote Occupy the 99%: How to Shop on Buy Nothing Day. In preparing that post, I encountered Buy Nothing Christmas, which reminded me of the documentary What Would Jesus Buy? and I said to myself, Yeah, right on, Brother! Those ideas are easy for me to buy into since, being a recently diagnosed freelance writer, I can afford to buy nothing.
That same evening I went to Swap Sity’s screening of the film Living Without Money and listened to guest speaker, “Barter Babe” Shannon Simmons, talk about how to make bartering a part of your personal financial plan. That’s something I could afford – Christmaswapping!
Buy Nothing Christmas
But when my dear family began to pester me for my “Christmas list”, which should be an oxymoron rather than a cliché, I felt myself toning down the buy-nothing rhetoric. I’m doing it for them, I told myself, because it would just break their little hearts if I didn’t have something under the tree to unwrap, from each of them, with their names on the tags. Altruism can be a vicious game.
So yeah, yesterday I sent out my list. If I were to get everything on my list, the retail value would be more than I’ve earned in the last six months – I’m talking hundreds of dollars – stuff that I have admitted I do not need.
Then today I flip-flopped again. After saying a firm “No” three times to joining an expedition to a non-specific warehouse sale, I caved rather than “ruin the Christmas spirit”. The aim of the mission was to buy “stocking stuffers” – the season’s most repugnant word pair. What horror. Mountains of infomercial rejects. Who could possibly want any of this crap? Damn, I am such a hypocrite! Okay, I confess – I let someone buy me a $4 baking pan, which I will use for baking Fair Squares*, the brownies I will be giving everyone for Christmas. [Too late for a SPOILER ALERT?]
Now here is my selfish Christmas wish, which I am sending out to you and the world. What I want for Christmas is to increase my readership of a dozen subscribers to over 100. So, please, indulge me. Try getting in the spirit of giving without spending, and make this the best Christmas ever – for me – by subscribing to http://goodevaning.wordpress.com/.
And it’s a gift you can give to everyone you know at absolutely no cost to anyone. And it’s a gift you can enjoy for years to come, or ignore without guilt, or get rid of without harming the environment, or – the best option – re-gift without letting go of it.
Please take a few seconds and subscribe, and then take a minute to suggest to a few of your friends and family that they subscribe, too. I don’t aspire to be “bigger than Jesus”, but I’d like to spread my words. That’s what I want; what do you want? Donate a comment.
Have a happy solstice!
*To help the producers of the ingredients – many of them actual Christians in Latin America – earn a wage that might enable their families to celebrate Christmas, I use Fair Trade cocoa and Fair Trade sugar (and eggs from local, free-run chickens). FREE RECIPE FOR SUBSCRIBERS.
