A Traceable Christmas Reflection.

I had hoped to post this sooner but it’s been a busy few weeks. But we wanted to share a bit of our reflections from Our Heretic’s Guide To Christmas, where we decided to incorporate a level of traceability into the gifts we bought for our family and friends. And with the exception of one gift (a Chik-Fil-A gift card for a rather picky brother – but it’s still a local franchise) we were able to get every gift locally, make it ourselves, or buy it from someone who was an artist/creator.

While we definitely aren’t “corporate free” – our big Christmas present this year from family was a new camera – we really enjoyed being connected, albeit loosely, to the gifts that we purchased. We were certainly fortunate enough to have the Indie Craft Experience in our backyard, which saved us the hassle of having to dig deep to find gifts.

All in all, Anna and I believe that this was one of the more rewarding Christmas seasons for us. We put time and thought into each and every gift instead of just buying the first thing that we saw on the shelf that fit our budget. Each gift that we bought had a story behind it and we were able to share that with those that we gave the gifts to. We also kept money in the local economy for one more round (which I’ve mused on the power of here).

Honestly though, it stretched our budget. Part of the luxury of franchises and national chains is that they are able to offer lower prices because of their strength in numbers and because of the tendency of some to rely on less than ethical practices. When you buy locally, you pay more of a real cost because of it’s equitable distribution of labor and costs. So needless to say, our budget got a bit stretched. It seemed like we ended up paying double for almost everything. But Anna bailed us out with her creativity to think of innovative alternatives.

Those who know me will tell you that I’m a bit of a Scrooge when it comes to buying things for other people. I guess due to my penny-saving upbringing (i.e. stingy parents), less has always been more. Or at least that’s what I’ve told myself so that I can justify buying more stuff for me. But this was the first year that I didn’t mind spending money. Even when we were doubling the cost. Dare I say that I actually enjoyed it. Perhaps because I had a higher confidence that what we were buying was going to be something meaningful and perhaps just because I caught a small glimpse of what it feels like to carry a half-way generous spirit around with you. Either way . . . I enjoyed it. And it was worthwhile for us.

We got to support the local economy. We got to support other stay at home artists, creators, and moms who are attempting to live like we live. And we got the privilege of making a stand, a stand against the massive amounts of money funneled to the top on the backs of the global poor at the hands of easy gifts and a savior-like Santa Claus. A stand against Caesar and his American dream for my life.

It was twice as exhausting. Twice as expensive. Twice as comprehensive. But twice as rewarding.

Now for next year . . .

Listening: Close To Paradise by Patrick Watson

Random Links.

Our podcast got transcribed from one of Slice of Laodicea and Ingrid’s henchmen. Ken Silva does a nice job of slamming us. Thanks for the link Ken!

Some beautiful reflections on Buy Nothing Day, our shared contradictions, and fashion among other things.

New podcast up with my personal friend Ed Stetzer, from my old Southern Baptist days.

Rudy Giuliani makes an excellent point (ht: Cindy Bryan). I only wish he didn’t want to resort to the same tactics that we’ve always used to resolve those struggles. Excerpt below . . .

I get very, very frustrated when I . . . hear certain Americans talk about how difficult the problems we face are, how overwhelming they are, what a dangerous era we live in. I think we’ve lost perspective. We’ve always had difficult problems, we’ve always had great challenges, and we’ve always lived in danger.

Do we think our parents and our grandparents and our great grandparents didn’t live in danger and didn’t have difficult problems? Do we think the Second World War was less difficult that our struggle with Islamic terrorism? Do we think that the Great Depression was a less difficult economic struggle for people to face than the struggles we’re facing now? Have we entirely lost perspective of the great challenges America has faced in the past and has been able to overcome and overcome brilliantly? I think sometimes we have lost that perspective.

Do you know what leadership is all about? Leadership is all about restoring that perspective that this country is truly an exceptional country that has great things that it is going to accomplish in the future that will be as great and maybe even greater than the ones we’ve accomplished in the past. If we can’t do that, shame on us.

A Heretic’s Guide To Christmas (non-confrontational alternative title: Clap Your Hands! It’s Christmas Time!).

Just to make sure we’re on the same page . . . I’m not a communist, despite my long hair (that I’m giving to kids who don’t have any), our scooter (gas prices are lame), our free-range turkey (it’s going to taste better), and any other lifestyle choice that Anna and I have made jointly. Just giving a proper disclaimer because I’m not a huge fan of getting labeled a hippie/communist/anarchist or any other derogatory term.

But Anna and I have started to formulate some of our thoughts on Christmas. In our searching for “back to the meaning of Christmas” types of things we’ve stumbled across some really great resources that I would be remiss if I didn’t share.

I fully understand that by recommending some of these things it might appear that we’re snobbish or condemning of others who do things differently. From the bottom of my bleeding little heart I would encourage you to give us the benefit of the doubt and know that we’re not trying to put anyone on a guilt trip or to make us look better than we actually are. In reality, we’re foolish dreamers on our best days and hypocrites every other day. These are just our thoughts and plans for Christmas. And we’d love for you to join in on any level.

First of all, we made the decision about 2 months ago to incorporate a traceability (borrowed from Plenty and the 100 Mile Diet) factor into all of our gift buying during the holidays. Meaning, that we wanted to buy local products from people and places that we could physically know the story of. If we bought jewelry, we wanted to know the designer and where they got the materials to make it. So we made a commitment to buy local, create something ourselves, or buy arts & crafts from someone we knew or could trace back locally. Essentially, hand-made, storied, artistic gifts. This sounded like a great idea when we first talked about it. Now it seems rather foolish and difficult. But we’ve gone to a few arts & crafts festival and picked up some gifts there. And we’ve bought a few from some local stores. I’m making my grandmother a cattail pillow. And that’s about as far as we’ve gotten. But this weekend, we’re going to the Indie Craft Experience (ICE-Atlanta) and wanted to invite all of you Atlantians out. My friend, Troy Bronsink of Church As Art, tipped me off to it. So we hope to play catch up on all the gifts we haven’t bought yet.

I’d also like to tip you off to a few Facebook Groups and other movements that we’ve found. There is the Advent Conspiracy (Facebook Group, Main Website), who my friend Scott is behind, which is a group seeking to reclaim Christmas from credit card debt and consumerism and reimagine it at as the relational, giving, serving, reflective season that it is.

Then from the fine folks over at Adbusters, the Culture Jammers bring you Buy Nothing Day (Facebook page). Which is effectively a 24 hour “shopping fast”. Which most people could probably get on board with. Except Buy Nothing Day is the day after Thanksgiving. Serving as a critique to Black Friday and the busiest shopping day of the year. I won’t give you any more commentary on this because I don’t want to piss anybody and come off like more of an ass than I already do. I’ll just say that Anna and I will be participating this year.

But instead of just being a grumpy anti-consumer, we’re going to participate in something positive and constructive in it’s place. My friend Mike Morrel invited me to this and we’ll be joining in with others to create something for others instead of consuming something for others. Subtle shift but one that I think is huge. You can find out more info on this one by checking out the Make Something Day website or by joining the Facebook group.

Bottomline . . . why are we doing this?

It just seems kind of crazy for us that a holiday that is supposed to about Jesus has now forced him out of the picture and co-opted spending and consumption in his place. For us, the Jesus of Christmas is not just a fragile little baby in a manger. But the wild, subversive prophet who challenged an empire and practiced justice. It doesn’t make much sense for as followers of the Way for us to buy gifts made by people overseas in factories that treat them contrary to the way Jesus would. Or to buy gifts made by detached machines.

This could blow up in our face. But it is one more experiment that we are attempting in the face of a suffocating narrative that is antithetical to Jesus. So if you don’t think I’m an ass or a snob, please join us and come with us on Saturday or explore some of the sites we listed.

Thank you and good day.