Taking an environmental stance on the commercialization of Christmas

Centuries ago, Christians co-opted a pagan celebration of the winter solstice to commemorate the birth of Jesus, despite the uncertainty of the time of that event. During the last century, a different group of ambitious crusaders co-opted this now-holy day for their own ends. Where the early Christians acted for piety, the new crusaders — advertisers — acted merely for avarice.

Welcome to Christmas in the 21st century, where Americans routinely spend nearly $1,000 on gifts for friends and family. This mass consumption does not come without costs — and I don't mean purchase costs. The World Wildlife Fund's Living Planet Report 2000 calculated that human impact on the environment, which has increased by 50 percent during the last 30 years, is now 30 percent more than the planet can sustainably handle. This massive "ecological footprint" is largely driven by personal possessions. Material goods — the things of which Christmas presents are made — require energy and materials in production, transportation and disposal.

What's the purpose of Christmas, anyway? Is it a time for sharing warm, joyous times with our friends and family, and expressing love and appreciation? Or is it an opportunity for acquisition? If it's the former, there must be better ways of achieving this — ways that don't exact such a high price on our precious environment. Thanksgiving is a day for the expression of family bonds, but it doesn't involve the giving of gifts. (We should not, however, forget the impact of these festivities on the nation's turkey populations.)

If Christmas is about accumulating desired possessions, it would seem more effective to buy our own things rather than hope others will stumble upon that perfect gift. We all have an "Aunt Matilda," who reminds us so compellingly that other people can't always figure out what we'll appreciate most. Remember that pink fuzzy bunny suit/gaudy acrylic sweater/dancing coke can/fill-in-the-blank tacky gift you got last year? In my case, it was a mauve corduroy baseball cap. (Shudder.)

However, the idea that those who seek material gain from Christmas are better served by eschewing gift-giving altogether ignores the importance of asymmetry in purchasing power. Those who can afford to give more (parents) often develop strong psychological compulsions — they feel guilty about neglecting their children while working to support their families. It's not novel to suggest that different people see different things in the holiday — kids like it for the stuff, while parents love it for the opportunity to assuage their guilt. By the time they have grown up enough to see the emptiness of materialism, we often have kids of our own, and desperately want to please them — at any cost. And thus the ploy of commercial advertising succeeds brilliantly.

No longer children and not yet parents, we are in the perfect position to short-circuit this vicious cycle. We are educated enough to understand the costly ramifications of materialism, old enough to know what we want and young enough to be free of the guilt that parents inevitably feel while Christmas shopping. Let's take advantage of this opportunity to make our holiday traditions more meaningful and more environmentally benign.

But how to achieve this desirable end? We could suggest that instead of store-bought goods, everyone in our gift-giving circle give favors, plan special events or make homemade gifts. These ideas require more creativity, but might help seasonal shoppers avoid the environmental burden of material goods and could potentially inspire them to spend more meaningful time with loved ones. But given everyone's childhood memories of commercial Christmases past, it will be difficult to maintain the holiday cheer without cutting down trees, erecting them in our living rooms and piling new gifts beneath the soon-to-be sagging branches. Perhaps we should recognize that we can "team up" with others if the "perfect" gift is too expensive, or better still, we could suggest less expensive, more thoughtful gift ideas.

Alternatively, people could embrace a Secret Santa scheme, as my family has, where each person is designated a partner for gift exchanges. But even if you can't convince your family to adopt one of these more ecologically efficient gift-giving ideas, you are not completely powerless. You can still give and request environmentally friendly gifts. One of my favorite eco-friendly ideas is a program offered by the Nature Conservancy and the World Wildlife Fund, which lets you protect an acre in the name of your gift recipient. And as if saving a part of nature were not enough, you also get an attractive certificate and sometimes a colorful nature calendar, too.

Whether we celebrate a religious Christmas, a pagan ritual or some other winter festival, our holiday memories are already priceless. There is a planet full of good reasons to strive for pricelessness in our holiday gifts, too. Kai M.A. Chan is an ecology and evolutionary biology graduate student from Toronto, Ontario. He can be reached at kaichan@princeton.edu.