Monday, October 20, 2008

The Three Rs vs How many shopping days until Christmas?

Let’s see if the two topics below go together:

First - only 66 shopping days ‘til Christmas

And only 66 days until the inevitable Boxing Day Blow-out sales too, excessive consumerism’s finest hour.

Second - I underlined the following in The Virtuous Consumer [see Read This - side panel] about the 3 Rs, a topic I’ve touched on in my last two columns:

It’s like a jingle that almost becomes meaningless when you hear it once too often.

But the three Rs - reduce, reuse, recycle - might be all we really need.


["What do we really need?": click here]

Nobody likes this reduce R very much. But, frankly, it’s by far the most important.

Buy less stuff. period.
(pg. 104)

Do the two topics belong together?

On the one hand businesses are gearing up to sell, sell, sell the gaudiest pile of stuff ever in the history of man, on the other we probably don’t need 90 per cent of it.

Conclusion: Both topics deserve equal amounts of valuable thinking time.

We have 66 days to consider what we really need for Christmas.

.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

I've been thinking about this a lot more and more and especially since last Christmas. The children are getting one present and a stocking (a standard Dad sock size) from FC. I go to the Mall and am sickened by the boxes and extra stock being delivered to all of the shops every day now.

Furthermore, have you seen the tat that's Christmas-themed that we're supposed to buy - mugs and picture frames and platters and cutlery sets etc etc? Not to mention the pressure on us to make the "perfect media-led meals / gifts / tree decorations / house decorations etc etc"

This is going hand in hand with my on-going struggle with what Christmas is all about - for us - anyway. As non-church-goers, I'm struggling to find a meaning for our family.

I think as soon as the kids grow up, I'm going to go Christmas-free like some friends of ours already do.

G. Harrison said...

my oldest son and new wife are visiting and i've delivered the 'small Christmas' idea, as in years past. they get it now and we had a great talk about cutting back and enjoying family time more.

i may not even enter a mall this year; home-made from the shop will be the way.

unfortunately, two people want my Rietveld chairs (circe 1934 style)! i may have to come up with a way to turn it into an 'assemble-yourself' kit to save time.

cheers, gord

ps i'll email a diagram of possible dollhouse

Anonymous said...

tee hee, I'm working on a design too, we'll see how our ideas mesh up.