bwerb
Hoser/English Translator, eh
As we all know, Christmas has become in many, many places a frenzy of unbridled consumerism. The stress and pressure to buy and spend comes at you from all angles and the expectations from family, friends, work clients, etc. for gifts etc. can be really too much.
Without getting into the real reason for Christmas, suffice it to say that it truly IS about giving...unfortuately, for far too many, it has morphed into "receiving" and/or giving excessively because it has become the cultural norm.
Me and my immediate family live in a good community, with well paying jobs and frankly don't "need" anything. I think back to how many times we've succumbed to the societal pressure to "buy so-and-so a good gift" and have wandered around stores looking for "something". This "something" isn't usually something that they "needed" but was something we thought that they'd "want".
So we decided that we'd change our focus this year...and hopefully make a small change in our family traditions and refocus on true giving...giving to those to who are truly desperate/needy. Now there are a million ways to do this but my wife and I decided that we would do this as a two step process.
This year we did all of our shopping at ten thousand villages. We bought some nice small gifts for our family and friends and will be buying some "farm animals" as a greater direct community gift.
Step two is that once we explain what we've done and why to our families, we are hoping to convert the gift exchange entirely to community support. (We've put an exception to this in for the kids, we still think that giving gifts to the family children is alright).
We're just hoping to make one small step to reclaim the spirit of the season and to make a difference, one family at a time.
I wanted to share it here as food for thought, perhaps someone else is looking for "that perfect gift" and would like to flip the consumerism on it's head.
Without getting into the real reason for Christmas, suffice it to say that it truly IS about giving...unfortuately, for far too many, it has morphed into "receiving" and/or giving excessively because it has become the cultural norm.
Me and my immediate family live in a good community, with well paying jobs and frankly don't "need" anything. I think back to how many times we've succumbed to the societal pressure to "buy so-and-so a good gift" and have wandered around stores looking for "something". This "something" isn't usually something that they "needed" but was something we thought that they'd "want".
So we decided that we'd change our focus this year...and hopefully make a small change in our family traditions and refocus on true giving...giving to those to who are truly desperate/needy. Now there are a million ways to do this but my wife and I decided that we would do this as a two step process.
This year we did all of our shopping at ten thousand villages. We bought some nice small gifts for our family and friends and will be buying some "farm animals" as a greater direct community gift.
Step two is that once we explain what we've done and why to our families, we are hoping to convert the gift exchange entirely to community support. (We've put an exception to this in for the kids, we still think that giving gifts to the family children is alright).
We're just hoping to make one small step to reclaim the spirit of the season and to make a difference, one family at a time.
I wanted to share it here as food for thought, perhaps someone else is looking for "that perfect gift" and would like to flip the consumerism on it's head.
