Take Back the Solstice

Do Whatever You Want for the Holidays, Just Don’t Destroy the Planet Please

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

In 2020, people generated about 2.24 billion tons of solid waste, amounting to a footprint of 0.79 kilograms per person per day. By 2050, this is estimated to reach about 3.88 billion tons.

What role does Christmas shopping play in that. Quite a lot, but not enough to make much of a dent if we all just stopped participating in the overconsumption around Christmas.

Global Christmas spending has been growing annually by approximately 5%-7% from 2020 to 2024. The United States, Europe, and China are the primary drivers of Christmas related spending, with U.S. consumers allocating over 20% of their annual retail spending for Christmas. Overall, American consumers will spend more than $1 trillion for Christmas this year. The total cost per household, will be about $1,500.

The World Bank data shows that the GDP in the world was worth about $105 trillion US dollars in 2023.

That means just US Christmas shopping makes up about 1% of global GDP.

Face palm.

Let’s run some numbers.

According to the above linked article from Coupert:

• 70% of consumers report purchasing non-essential items during Christmas, solely for holiday celebrations.

· 33% of the global population, approximately 2.6 billion people, celebrate Christmas in some form.

• 2024 (forecast): Global Christmas spending is expected to reach $1.25 trillion, representing an 8% year-over-year growth.

That is a lot of crap we buy that we mostly throw away. Yes, we should do less of that as all that plastic, and all that stuff thrown in a landfill isn’t good for us. So, how do we stop.

Give credit where it’s due.

I want to give a shoutout to someone from this community, Andrea O’Ferrall, who posted a link to a story she wrote a few years ago. Here it is. How to Have a Climate Friendly Christmas | by Andrea O'Ferrall | Medium. Sorry Substack, it’s on Medium, I hope that isn’t a problem.

I recommend you read it. It’s a good meditation on walking away from the consumerism, and colonialism tied up in Christmas. I really liked this quote from Andrea’s piece, so I’m going to borrow it.

Janis Makokis, from Edmonton, whose family is from the Saddle Lake Cree Nation said, to decolonize “meant that we start exploring how we were going to consciously choose to do things differently and doing ceremonies versus buying into capitalism. Going back to ceremony as a family has been a relief and enlightening experience,” she said. “There’s no stress, no pressure that comes with the craziness of the holiday hustle and bustle.”

We are the stories we tell ourselves.

Anyone who has been in this community for a while has read me saying “We are the stories we tell ourselves,” on more than one occasion.

I am a firm believer in that. The traditions we have at Christmas, from baking cookies to insane amounts of consumption, are all learned behaviors and traditions. We can step back from them and change them.

If we want to change the story of how we celebrate the end of the year, we need to change our stories. That doesn’t mean you have to hate Christmas or not celebrate it. Christmas is fun, my kids love it. They were at the kitchen table addressing envelopes for our Christmas cards today. Christmas can be more about community and family if you want it to, so make it so. Tell that story.

Celebrate the solstice. Go wassailing (now it’s called caroling), make gifts, give money to charity, volunteer, make wreaths and other decorations, bake Christmas cookies for friends, celebrate Festivus – really, if you’re going to be around family, there should be an airing of grievances at the holidays. Don’t keep that stuff bottled up.

If you don’t do any of those things but want to. Find people around you that do. Make social media work for you for a change.

We have many of the above traditions in our house, with mostly my wife to thank for carrying on most of them.

Tell us all traditions you celebrate that celebrate the solstice, your family, your community, or just being alive this time of year. I’m sure someone here will learn something and start a new tradition for themselves.

And over time, the trash footprint of Christmas will dissipate, and then people will learn again that they need each other more than they need stuff.

But we can start doing that now.