Congratulations everyone! We’ve survived a hell of another year, and for our reward, Christmas is upon us. A time for family and friends and loved ones, a time for carols, a time for presents. But unfortunately, it’s also a time for overconsumption and mass environmental damage. A recent report by the Bank of England has concluded that the average Brit spends £700 extra on Christmas per year, and Business Waste has reported that waste goes up to 30% more – these statistics added up contribute negatively to our environment, as well as the general climate crisis which is taking away from us traditional winter festivities such as snow and more extreme weather conditions. If you think too much about it, Christmas can become a sobering time. However, worry not, because there’s always something you can do (or not do) to contribute to a more mindful and environmental Christmas.
Let’s begin at a place where, if they were allowed, they would have Christmas all year round: the shops. The ‘Christmas Creep’ is a term that was coined somewhere in the mid-1980s to explain the gradual creeping of Christmas marketing further into the year, although it happened before that decade, too. Tesco started advertising their Christmas products in the back shelves of their stores in September this year, and the ASDA ad containing the Grinch (you know the one) has been on everyone’s screens twice or more any time someone watches anything. In fact, personally, that ad is the only one I’ve seen in the wild this year so far. This aggressive marketing contributes to the hundreds of pounds spent everywhere that celebrates Christmas, especially once combined with ‘deals’ and ‘rare savings.’ When you go to the shop and see something on offer you want as a guilty pleasure or a one-off, you buy it, because when else will this happen? When will you next get a deal this good? As it turns out, it will happen every month until the big day: grocery sales rotate every four to six weeks, according to many blogs online dedicated to the cheaper shopper, meaning the longer the seasonal marketing goes on, the more chance that gift or treat will be back on sale more times; and the further that the Christmas Creep goes on, the more chances you’ll get to consume what you’ve bought so want to rebuy, and the more chances shops get to convince you to buy more using this method. Part of being sustainable is being more conscious of corporations and understanding the tricks used to get us to spend money on wasteful items. By thinking more practically this Christmas, you can save yourself quite a bit of money and ‘treats’ you may very well soon find out are redundant. And as for gifts, everything can be found secondhand nowadays, because everything can be mass-produced and not everything is kept forever; as a bonus, it’s cheaper, too!
In November, GWP, a British packaging company, published statistics of plastic usage during Christmas. They report that 114,000 tonnes of plastic packaging gets thrown out over the holiday, much more than glass which is reported to be 13,350. And that’s not including the plastic that makes up many presents themselves, or the Christmas decorations that now have different trends each year, and the cards and wrapping paper which sometimes contain glitter that presents an environmental nightmare. At this point in our lives, plastic is unavoidable. It’s strong, durable, and incredibly useful. But there has been in recent years more and more research about how only approximately seven to nine per cent of plastic actually gets recycled, the environmental damage plastic can cause, and how we ourselves have microplastics in our bodies. It’s an undeniable fact that while plastic is a necessity in certain situations, it would be better if we reduced our plastic consumption as best we could. And for Christmas, that usually means a conscious rejection of convenience and being won over by new and pretty: consider that anything covered in sparkling glitter will rub off anywhere you put it, and that you likely have more than enough decorations at home even if it’s not in this seasons’ colours; plastic production leads to cheaper sales, which is fair enough in our cost of living crisis, but there are plenty of cheap non-plastic items to buy and use as well as saving money and having fun making things yourself.
Let’s pause a second and go back to making things yourself, shall we? Before the convenience of a shop on every corner and the mass production of anything you could ever want, there was the slow and steady tradition of making your own Christmas decor and gifts. Holiday classics such as Little Women and A Christmas Carol showcase homemade trinkets which characters take pride in from making themselves and using more sustainable materials such as paper, glass, and foil. Take a holiday to visit the DIY gurus and see what they’re up to. Social media has every kind of crafting project you can dream of, and because ‘tis the season, they have dozens of Christmas and seasonal decor you can try. It’s cheap, or free if you can use stuff you already have, and it serves you fun as you learn to make something new and pride when you finally complete it. It can even become a tradition for you and your loved ones: recently on social media there’s been a boom in nights in with friends where everyone talks and eats and creates, adorned with themed place settings and music; an evening where you and your loved ones sit down and try making paper chains for the first time or making a game out of painting Christmassy pictures might just be the fun new tradition that keeps you entertained every year.
Another company that has published statistics this year is Waste Direct, this time about food waste. ‘Tis the season for cracking open the Celebrations tub, excessive hot chocolate making, and the biggest dinner of the year. It’s been proven that food waste spikes during Christmas, the result of buying too much (possibly from those Christmas adverts I mentioned) then not knowing what to do with it. According to Waste Direct, approximately 4.5 million Christmas dinners are wasted annually in the UK, costing an average of £60 extra over the holidays. Food waste is still not disposed of correctly in many places, ending up in landfill where it doesn’t break down properly and instead emits greenhouse gases and leaks into its environment, instead of being composted correctly and creating something new. It’s incredibly tempting to buy more food over the holidays, as it may be tradition or it’s been packaged and its recipe changed to be utterly delectable (see Christmas food themed crisps and snow-covered cake boxes), but if there’s only a small amount of people planning to eat this food or the use by date turns out to arrive faster than it takes to consume, it’s cheaper and more sustainable to think twice.
Of course, Christmas also cannot survive without events. In every city and many towns and villages dotted around every place that celebrates Christmas, the streets are decked in lights, and set up for roughly three months is what’s usually called a ‘Winter Wonderland,’ where you can ice skate, toast marshmallows, and most importantly, spend your money at craft stalls and the temporary snow covered fairground. There are countless other events that councils or collectives put on as well, such as Santa’s Grotto (paying for entry and a photo of your kid on Santa’s lap) and local cinemas and theatres showing themed plays and reshowings of the season’s most beloved films (so you can watch on the big screen as well as on your television when it comes back on). All of this costs money, of course. And I don’t begrudge it – it’s a wonderland, literally, a way of bringing people together and getting them out of the house to experience instead of consume. While the crowds are large and overwhelming, the lights are beautiful and the craft stalls have genuinely lovely handmade gifts. But there’s a downside to everything these days; in this respect, it’s the prices and the aggression. Every year these Wonderlands get more expensive for the same variation of rides and games stalls, and they are usually advertised to a degree where it can be everywhere you turn and at the heart of it there are too many people to actually enjoy these experiences. Especially for people who may be physically or mentally disabled or become overwhelmed in crowds quickly, this can become a difficult situation to properly enjoy. Because this is something that requires more than an individual solution, my tips for having a calmer and more sustainable Christmas at themed events may be harder for some people to achieve: find smaller, more local events, such as small towns near where you live or certain farms that set up seasonal events. Craft stalls are irresistible, especially if you’re a creative person like me, but if you’d rather save money and the stress of dodging those really slow walkers who take up the entire stall, you can totally pop in and take a business card or look online for the stallholders in your vicinity, then just look them up online or where they’re in a quieter setting. Sustainability isn’t just about the environment – it’s also being conscious of the energy you can use before you burn out from the amount of stress around or money you spend. As long as you can take care of yourself, you will have a good Christmas.
I’m not demonising the people who go out and spend money at this time of year; in the midst of cold dark winter we need light and joy, and for some this comes from themes and shopping. After all, it’s your money, and who am I to tell you what to do with it? But two things can be true at the same time – that it’s okay to treat yourself this Christmas, and that our planet needs your help. We’re told time and again that individual acts aren’t enough to do anything, but that’s false, because if we’re more mindful of our wrapping paper and instead buy rolls without glitter, that means there’s less glitter in our binbag. If you resist the Christmas Creep of big stores and instead go for local artisans for gifts and decorations that you can’t find elsewhere, that means the big corps get less of your hard-earned money and there’s more for the little guy that directly involves your locale. And the old faithful, handmade and DIY, can never go out of fashion. Sustainability can be at the heart of anything if you try, even a little, to be mindful. I believe in you to make this a sustainable Christmas, one and all.
