Going Gift Free...and not hating it

When my husband first suggested going (largely) gift free last December*, I was horrified. I adore presents; choosing them, wrapping them, giving them, getting them, unwrapping them... the whole shebang.

But after a long year, the thought of trying to pick out non-bankrupting presents that weren't largely meaningless additions to clutter and/or consumerism was overwhelming.

I agreed to try it.

We persuaded most of our immediate family to do the same.

Somewhat to my surprise, I didn't hate it.

Now WHY would you cut these delightful things out of your life?
Photo credit: JD Hancock (CC-BY 2.0)

Why Replace Gifts?

Why do we give gifts? Sometimes we do it in order to satisfy social convention, but in the best case scenario we genuinely desire to show love and appreciation for another person by giving them something that they will enjoy, and something which they wouldn't necessarily have gotten for themselves.

Now ask yourself: does my gift giving always actually end up doing this? And if so, is it the best way to do it?

Often, it seems to me, we spend a huge amount of time and a scary amount of money trying (sometimes unsuccessfully) to express our love. The stress of malls and shopping centres in the run up to Christmas can consume our attention for weeks ahead of "the big day", and being in that environment often increases our dissatisfaction with the gifts we've chosen and the lifestyle we live: being exposed to all that consumerism and advertising definitely has an impact. It's all very well to be strong willed, but companies spend millions of rand trying to make their product irresistible to people just like you and me.

And then, too often, the gift you settle on isn't quite right. You end up buying something for the sake of having something to give, but it isn't quite what the person needs or wants, and you end up feeling even more dissatisfied. 

(This isn't to say that when you find that perfect gift you shouldn't buy it. But don't buy it because you have to. Buy it "just because". We did that once. Three years on, the gift in question is still being used daily. This is a win.)

But when you are buying bulk gifts for everyone, it's unlikely that you'll hit the giver's jackpot for everyone. You'll probably have to settle in some cases, and end up back where we started. Dissatisfied.

Or they'll get you a bigger/better gift, and you feel guilty.

Or they'll get you a smaller/worse gift and you feel grumpy. And guilty for being grumpy.

Either way, you lose. Money. Time. Peace of mind. Even relationship value.

Wouldn't it be better to take that time, and a small portion of that money, and spend it with the person you love?

The gift of time?
Photo credit: Moyan Brenn (CC-BY 2.0)

Time and Effort

I am a firm believer in this principle: if you want to cut something out of your life, replace it with something better. Otherwise the gap will either hurt like the blazes, or get filled by something worse.

We replaced Christmas presents with two things: time and effort. Or, as we phrased it amongst ourselves, acts of service and family activities.

Basically, we got together and made two lists. One was of things that we would like to have done for us, or that we needed help with. My requested act of service was making a headboard for our bed. My dad wanted help painting his puppet theatre. My mom needed help with organising her digital music collection, and so on. Then we made (and diarised!) times  to do these acts of service for - and more importantly, with - each other.

Mostly, the acts of service weren't necessities - of course we would help each other with urgent and essential things at any time during the year. They were just those little niggly things that you want done. In that way, they mimicked an important quality of gifts: no-one wants nothing but socks and toothpaste for Christmas! You want things that you just want.

The second list was of family activities. Climbing Table Mountain, going to the Planetarium, having a mini carol service and baking gingerbread were some of our chosen activities. Some activities involved a smaller subset of the gifting community, others were much wider. We made a conscious effort to spend large chunks of time doing things that we wanted to do, rather than letting the whole "festive season" take over and leave us exhausted but without having actually spent quality time together.

Family outings aren't limited to the human race!
Photo credit: Boris Kasimov (CC-BY 2.0)

Saving Money vs Financial Freedom

You will notice that I haven't spoken much about saving money. That's because although that was a side-effect of our Gift Free campaign, it wasn't the main purpose. In fact, some of our acts of service and family outings actually cost some money. Gasp!

But although it wasn't about saving money as such, it was definitely about financial freedom.

Because financial freedom isn't only about being free to quit work if we want to. It is also about having our happiness independent from money. It's about satisfaction getting disconnected from consumerism and reconnected to relationship.

From this point of view, and in fact from many points of view, I am more than happy to repeat the Gift Free strategy this year, without feeling the least bit sad about those glittery packages.

What would you do to replace gifts in  your life? If you're not ready to replace them altogether, how could you reduce the impact of stress and consumerism on your gifting decisions?

To freedom!
jjdaydream




*If you're wondering why I'm talking about December/Christmas in September it is because we have had to start planning travel arrangements and family events already... so it is at the forefront of my mind. 2015 is almost over, people!

Ethical Decisions: Avoiding the Fool's Choice

We recently stumbled across a website called Made in a Free World. This is about sourcing ethical products, ones which don't make use of what is essentially modern slave labour. They have an alarming survey called Slavery Footprint.

You fill in data about your lifestyle (in great detail, like how many rooms your house has, and how many pairs of pants you have!), and they work out how many slaves/indentured labourers work somewhere in the world to make that lifestyle possible. Obviously things like cotton, coffee, cosmetics and so on are really problematic. Electronic devices also seem to be a real problem.

The two of us got 26 and 35 slaves respectively.

This was scary.

This is the number of people - including children - who work in conditions that I'm sure all of us would consider unacceptable in order to provide us with our insanely luxurious lifestyles.

The economic chains which keep people in slavery are just as real as these ones.
Photo credit:Trevor Leyenhorst (CC-BY 2.0)

I recommend everyone does this survey. Rethink your life choices. It's a humbling exercise, and one which we should all do once in a while.

Avoiding the Fool's Choice

Now I know that often ethical consumer choices are prohibitively expensive. So how can we save money but still consume ethically?

This can be an example of a Fool's Choice or false dichotomy. You feel like you have to choose between two bad options. Actually, there is often a third option.

False dichotomy: forgetting the third option.
Photo credit: Dan Moyle (CC-BY 2.0)

Neither.

Don't buy the dodgy product. And if you can't afford the good product, then buy nothing.

Mostly, you don't actually need either of them.

Consuming less is a good idea anyway. Buying less saves money, cuts down on slaves and is also better for the environment.

When there isn't a third option...

Even food, the obvious exception to just not buying anything ever, can be part of the false dichotomy. Maybe the third option there isn't so much "neither" as "something else altogether", such local, in season fresh products.

But nonetheless, we have to accept that sometimes there is a genuine payoff here, and we have to make a genuine choice between cheapest and ethically acceptable.

This is a complicated, entangled issue. In each of these situations we need to make a moral choice as best we can. All I ask - and I am asking myself as much as I am asking you - is that we really think about the choice, rather than just grabbing the quickest, easiest, or even just cheapest option.

Think first. Consume later.
Photo credit: Taymaz Valley  (CC-BY 2.0)

Yours, in a most challenged frame of mine,
jjdaydream