Materialism is Madness
We are a snake eating its own tail
For the past six years, I have been volunteering at an amazing community-supporting organization called People’s Place. (Food Pantry, Thrift Store, Wellness Center, etc…) Each year, around this time, I help with sorting toys, games, crafts, and all manner of things that allow low-income children to get Christmas presents. The sheer number of people asking for help is astounding and grows every year. The support from the greater community is heartwarming as folks donate presents and funds to make gift-giving possible. I do love being part of the process. I truly do want these children to get presents. And I absolutely love the amazing work People’s Place does to make it happen. But, it is so challenging for me to juggle my feelings about providing momentary joy for children who may have so little and my sadness at the amount of waste this program and Christmas in general yields.
While gift giving is a wonderful thing, Christmas seems to serve as an excuse to buy too much cheaply made stuff, too many petroleum-products (plastic), too many single-use or unwanted items, too many “disposable” things, that will unironically never breakdown, and its a tacit yet wholesale sign-on to the cult of excess, consumerism, and materialism.
I am an anti-materialist. I loathe Amazon and other quick-fix shopping experiences, I hate plastic and avoid it at all costs, and believe in the non-acquisition of items especially things that are not needed. I do like nice things, and have gathered amazing pottery and textiles over 30+ years (and lugged them around with me every time I moved). Plus I have way more books than any one person should rightfully own. I hold onto things until they have holes and I buy almost everything (clothes and any housewares) second-hand. It took a while for me to get to this point. I was raised by and around people who believed that the more stuff you had, the better you’d look to the rest of the world. After being embarrassed by how much clothing I brought to college (my mom has a bit of a problem with shopping), I began to rethink things. In my 20s, after some transformative life experiences, I started to distance myself from that materialistic way of thinking and my beliefs have only gotten stronger and stronger. Most significantly, it became clear to me that I did not want a consumerist life when I became a mother.
My daughter’s first Christmas, we didn’t get her any presents that I can recall, partly because we knew that her extended family was going to go nuts to buy this baby girl all kinds of things. Plus, she was four months old, what the hell did she know about presents? We were right about the onslaught of crap from my family. Of course, this became a pattern and I knew we needed a plan before she got old enough to drink the consumer Kool-Aid. I turned to my dear NYC friends who were the devoutly religious parents of 4 kids (all six of them living in a three-bedroom apartment). When we spoke, their thinking was so simple and made perfect sense. They said something along the lines of, “Jesus got three gifts when he was born, so our kids get three gifts from us.” I loved it! I hadn’t been a Christian for many years at that point, but I could get behind the thinking, and thus a tradition was born. As my daughter got older, I explained the three-gift plan and created this protocol: one thing she picked out; one thing I surprised her with; and one experience. The experience part was the best because the two of us would typically go to a performance of some kind; modern dance or nose-bleed seats of a Broadway show.
Since I spend most of my time thinking about planetary health and how to slow down global warming, as well as how to get everyone to live more simply, mindfully, and with Earth and sustaining life at the center of their actions, of course, I would like all this materialism and the pressure to buy buy buy that capitalism sells us to just go away.
So, how can we all do better? I think it’s a great idea to do an inventory of your stuff and think about how to simplify. Then, stop acquiring. Trick yourself if you need to. Or make it a spiritual practice. It helps to cancel all your accounts with online shopping companies. Get acquainted with thrift stores in your area or host clothing and houseware swapping parties. Start a community “share closet” of household goods so you don’t buy things you’ll only use once in a blue moon.
Here are some disturbing facts that should help you think differently:
From 2016-2021, we globally consumed over 75% of what we did for the entire 20th century. (The Circularity Gap Report, 2024)
We currently have enough clothing on the planet to dress the next six generations. (British Fashion Council)
The average consumer now buys 60% more clothing items than they did 15 years ago but keeps them for only half as long (Second Nature)
One-third of packages that came into the US in 2022, were from “fast fashion” (or cheap shit creators) Shein and Temu (Second Nature)
So, here are some ideas to be a good gifter:
Parents, come up with a strategy to keep things simple in your home and do like I did, ask your family to tone it down.
Buy used items that are in good shape. You can find beautiful and interesting items - homemade pottery, great kitchenware, cloth napkins, barely worn sweaters and handbags - that make excellent gifts. ‘New’ need not be the ‘norm’.
Make things! Or buy homemade things from real craftspeople. Not only will you find something one-of-a-kind but you’ll also support a local artist in the process.
Gift “experiences”. Offer to cook someone dinner. Plan a day trip. Take in a gallery and bring sketchpads and/or watercolors.
The only way to change our wasteful consumer culture—around Christmas and all year—is to start by doing one thing differently. Then do it again, and again, until it becomes a habit of mind.
Pure madness!