A Sustainable Christmas

I often hear people saying that they dislike the commercialism and materialism of Christmas.
My response is that Christmas doesn’t have to be like that.  About 20 years ago when my children were little I was heavily influenced by a book called Green or Gone in which the authors argued that we have an inbuilt need for novelty which is what advertisers play on to encourage us to buy. They mentioned that this need was fulfilled in the Middle Ages by observation of the continually changing seasons and natural world and about 100 feast or saint days which each had their own special foods , rituals and songs.
I decided to add these things to my own families lives in order to prevent a need for materialism. With both my husband and I coming from families that only celebrated birthdays, Christmas and Easter in normal western ways I looked for ideas from the past and other cultures and traditions to build family traditions of our own.
With regards to Christmas my first step was to take the existing traditions in our families of carol singing in my family and going to church from my husband’s family. Instead of Christmas being a single day event I made all of December special as well as the twelve days of Christmas.
So Christmas for us starts on Stir up Sunday, the first Sunday of Advent. This is when the children and I make the Christmas puddings.  I use my mother-in-law’s recipe which was designed for large families so it makes two puddings, one of which we eat on Christmas Day and the other on New Years Eve.
We make an Advent Candle Wreath using salt dough and four candles. Each night we take turns lighting a candle. Each candle is lit for a week of Advent. Then finally on Christmas Eve all candles are lit.

I made an Advent calendar when the children were little. In my head it was going to look at little like a Michelangelo but in reality it doesn’t. The flaps are turned down to gradually reveal a nativity scene. It is 24 years old now and very much part of our family Christmas ritual. Starting with the youngest the family takes turns opening it each night. Then a collection of matchboxes is opened which has a Christmas activity in it that we do together as a family such as making decorations, special Christmas foods, and enjoying free Christmas activities.

A second Advent calendar is made of wrapping our pre-existing Christmas books in brown paper and put them in a box for my granddaughter to choose from each day. Then that book is read during the day and at bedtime at night. It really is amazing how mysterious and special books that you have owned for 20 years become when wrapped up in brown paper. 

We sing Christmas carols while driving anywhere and attend local carol services in our village and at church. I have a rule that no-one can sing Christmas carols until December and then we stop again at Epiphany.

Decorating is very important in making Christmas a special occasion. We start decorating at the beginning of December.  Most of our decorations are handmade and reused year after year. Occasionally I will buy a decoration for the year from the Community Aid Abroad shop. The year is written on it and it becomes part of family history. When we got married we only had 4 Indian birds on the tree. Twenty three years later we need a 3 m tree to hold all the decorations.
Choosing and decorating the tree is a whole family activity. We used to all hop in the car and drive down to the creek on our place to find the ideal she-oak branch to be our Christmas Tree. This way we didn't kill a tree or have a plastic one, plus we got the smell of a live tree. We decorate together with Christmas carols playing in the background. This year we bought a live almond tree that can live in a pot for a couple of years before being planted.

The flood of advertising material in the letterbox annoyed me so much that I resolved to make our decorations from recycled material. This started with making paper chains from strips of advertising catalogue a when the children were little and has increased in sophistication as the children grew up. My aim is that decorations should be compostable. This year's discovery is that stars punched out of different coloured gum leaves are very beautiful and fit the sustainable Christmas bill exactly. 

We make our own bon bons. we buy the thing that goes bang and the rest is made from recycled materials from the waste paper and cardboard. This year everyone got a joke, a party hat made from recycled material and some stars made from gum leaves.

My children have been encouraged since they were little to make all their presents and cards for family members . As they have grown up so has the complexity of their presents. We generally buy secondhand items for adults of the family who have been asked what they want. Our wider circle who receive presents has been reduced with most friends getting homemade biscuits. Other family members receive presents from Oxfam Unwrapped with the donation of something to a third world family. Realistically most people in the first world already have everything they need and all you are doing is cluttering their life with “stuff”.

Christmas paper is saved to be used again. Anything unusable is composted so there is very little waste.
In December I make sure I give my children and grandchild the gift of my time as we cook or make things together. Special days have special food to cook, for instance Speculaas biscuits for St Nicholas’ Day and fruit mince pies for on St Thomas’ Day on the 17th December.

We are vegetarian so Christmas food is simple. Food such as the Christmas cake, Christmas pudding, biscuits and mince pies are all made beforehand (as activities we do together). Christmas fare are summer stone fruits, dried fruit, nuts and cheeses with salads when we think we need a proper meal. 

Now all this may sound like a lot of work and money but the trick is not to do this on top of what you are already doing but instead of. I hear grandparents complaining about not having the money to buy the gifts that their grandchildren expect and of people going into debt each year to pay for Christmas presents. You don’t have to follow this path. Step away from the rat race and make Christmas what you want it to be. Give the gift of your time instead of money and encourage children to think of others.
Start when your children are young and then that becomes YOUR family tradition and then Christmas becomes something to look forward to rather than dread. Merry Christmas!