By Olivia Knight, new to the Postconsumers team, based in the London area, and founder of Patchwork Present. Patchwork Present lets friends get together to fund one gift that’s really wanted – piece by piece.
Last week I was feverishly retweeting George Monbiot’s article about the ‘bullshit industries’ selling us stuff nobody wants for Christmas. The week before I was sharing a piece by Rhiannon Lucy Cosslett about how the festive period should be about celebrating love not money. Watching the relentless ads in the last couple of weeks – whether cute from John Lewis, tongue in cheek from Harvey Nichols or just plain creepy from Toys R Us – it’s easy to see how we’re all seduced into wanting stuff. And so both articles were timely reminders that consumption is not in fact what Christmas is supposed to be about.
But for me there is a conversation missing between the big advertising campaigns selling us stuff for Christmas and media columnists telling us that all kids want is a walk in the woods.
And it’s a class conversation.
George Monbiot’s list of expensive and unnecessary gifts – the mahogany skateboard, a papadelle rolling pin and a tin of garden twine – were indeed silly and obscene. He rightly suggested families wondering whether to spend sixteen pounds on some garden string in an old looking tin should consider putting cash towards a better cause. And I agree.
But most families aren’t making a choice between buying those unnecessary stocking fillers or putting the £300 odd quid towards a better cause. Most families don’t have the luxury of ‘deciding not to do presents this year’ because there’s nothing they really need.
No presents is fine when you’re just snuggling down in your cashmere socks to play board games and drink champagne in front of a roaring log fire before the huge roast and country walk.
But that’s not most people’s reality.
When I grew up I loved Christmas because we got to see our cousins, eat Quality Street and watch telly at my Nan’s. But I also looked forward to it because it was a chance to get new things – like underwear, shoes or a coat.
When Rhiannon wrote her piece about growing up skint, about not discovering John Lewis until she was 17 and about getting presents from charity shops, I totally shared her experience. But then she ruined it all for me by saying she was happy with her homemade, hand-me-down and charity shop gifts.
I have to confess I was not.
Christmas was the one time my Mum, her friends and our family were going to spend what little money they did have buying us stuff. And I really wanted it to count. Going back to school everyone would be excitedly talking about their new Cindy house, Care Bear collection or TV/video combo and I wanted to join in. I dreaded the “What did you get for Christmas?” question. “An Indian bead making set, a second hand book, a pair of charity shop shoes and some soap in a basket wrapped in cellophane” was just not the answer I wanted to give.
I don’t remember if I got all these things in one year. Most years just blurred into one big memory of excitement, some fun and a feeling of slight disappointment when it came to the presents.
However one year does stand out. The year I got the one thing I really wanted: a two-tone, two-piece velour tracksuit. Everyone at school was already wearing them and me and my sister were desperate to have one too. And our amazing Mum saved up and our Nan chipped in and we all went down to Lewisham market to choose our tracksuits. We got matching ones – pink top and trousers with blue bat wing arms. And I can honestly say it was the best day of my life up until that point.
Mum put the tracksuits in a bag on top of her wardrobe until Christmas. And I vividly remember creeping in with my sister to take them down, look at them, feel their soft synthetic loveliness and then put them back up again with butterflies in our stomachs the whole time.
We weren’t greedy kids. We understood our situation and we didn’t want a ton of stuff but we did dream and we did want certain things and on the rare occasions that we actually got them we really appreciated and treasured them.
Yes of course the pressure came from the ads and the kids at school and of course I wish that brands and status and stuff didn’t matter but it did when I was seven and it still does now. And it feels real.
We should be challenging the ‘bullshit industries’ that fuel our desire for New, More, Novelty. We should be challenging the loan shops and the credit card companies that make a fortune out of families driven by pressure and guilt into spending money they don’t have buying gifts no one wants. But we also need to find ways to help people fund the things they do want and need. Rather than telling them they should be happy doing without.
To most families Christmas is about love but it’s also about giving and receiving. Most families haven’t been spontaneously treating themselves to whatever they’ve wanted all year. Most families aren’t sick of excess. They’re wondering how they’re going to pay for the Christmas lunch and the presents that their kids really want and need.
Somewhere between the big advertisers tempting us and George Monbiot chastising us is a common sense approach to Christmas gifts that is good for the planet and also people’s pockets.
Surely it makes sense to spend the money we have on the things we really need, to pool resources and invest in quality, to get together to chip in for gifts that are really wanted.
Surely there’s an idea we can all buy into.
