I'm a Material Girl

A different Holiday Gift Guide

Many of us struggle to engage in cultural celebrations in a commercialised world. This is the time of year when people take the most flack for being “extreme” environmentalists, total killjoys! Can’t you give it a rest at least once a year?

I’m currently reading Sacred Economics. It sat on my shelf for years, my little reminder that I need to better understand economics to try to make the world a better place. But I hesitated because, by the time I was 13 years old, I’d grown to hate money, seeing it as the root of all evil. my whole life, I never liked money or felt that I understood it—it didn’t make sense to me. You can’t eat it or wear it. I suppose you could burn it for warmth but that wouldn’t last long. And I never understood how we could allow such a wealth gap in the world. Sacred Economics covers all this in the first few chapters, opening my eyes to how we can make money “sacred” again, like the sacredness of exchanging gifts. The author hit me with a perspective shift I did not expect:

What if we embrace materialism?

What if we consider our things, our stuff, sacred again? What if we look at each item we have and see it as a gift from the Earth? We’d embrace the material item as part of this world, part of the forest or ocean or wherever its parts came from. Everything comes from this planet, after all, and if anything is sacred, the Earth certainly is. And if we surround ourselves with a few sacred items, isn’t that better than a bunch of homogenous things that everyone can get at any major store? And if we consider our things sacred, we’ll take better care of them. There’s no throwing it away and replacing it, like so much mass-produced, plastic garbage that ends up overflowing in our landfills and choking out life. You can see why I’ve been called a Grinch.

This post is for anyone who celebrates anything or want to give gifts for no reason at all—much of what is here can easily be adapted or incorporated to existing traditions. From what I can tell, most celebrations are about peace, love, and togetherness, they’ve just been coopted by capitalism. Let’s take them back.

Culture is what you do, not what you buy.

Below is a variety of approaches to celebrating gift-giving holidays in eco-friendly, intentional ways that foster bonding and community. While some of these things were born out of necessity (trying to make the holidays more affordable), these things also helped my family make holidays more meaningful. They focus on quality time and giving from the heart. Not everything fits neatly into a category and many things can be combined.

Making things has long been a tradition in my house. We’ve knitted scarves, exchanged painted flower pots, crafted home decor, gone to those shops where they fire pottery for you, and of course, given our drawings and paintings. As I sit here writing, my mother-in-law sent me a photo of the ornament she just added to her tree. I made it out of wood, twine, glue, and a wedding photo. Yes, Pinterest gave me the idea and I’m sure it’s full of new eco-friendly trends this year!

One year, I wrote all my loved ones a letter explaining how important our relationship is to me and sharing some of my fondest memories. The responses I got were very heartwarming—something money couldn’t buy.

Cooking together can be a source of joy or stress, so why not plan on it being joyful? Explore new recipes in big batches and offer some to the neighbours—we love using the old-timey casserole dishes from thrift stores and watching them circulate amongst our friends. One year, we went berry picking and devoted an evening to homemade jam and gave it as holiday gifts. One Thanksgiving, my mom and her best friend made turkey-potato-cranberry burritos and passed them out to the homeless nearby. (Yes, they tasted good.)

Typically, if we are specifically spending money, we focus on experiences and supporting local businesses: we buy concert tickets, go to the local theatre, or make “date coupons.” It doesn’t have to be a romantic date, just plans with anyone you care about. The coupon says “good for the cover charge” or “good for dinner after X event.” Here are some ideas for a variety of budgets:

dinner after a local art opening

drinks during a poetry slam at our favourite bar

cover charge for local music venue

lunch after a hike

bookshop & coffee

or bigger things, like camping trips or weekends away

My favourite is the bookshop and coffee dates. My husband and I go to a local bookshop, find a book, then go read in a cozy local coffee shop (at least we did before we started sailing!). This can also be done with a group of loved ones—I call it the Everyone Has a Different Book Club. We all go, find a book, and then depending on the group, we go to a coffee shop or back to someone’s place for cocktails. After we’ve read for a designated amount of time, we all share why we chose that book and the most interesting part of what we’ve read so far.

There are always the gifts that keep on giving, like memberships and subscriptions. One year, a dear friend got me a subscription to a virtual magazine, and I loved it. I thought of her every time it popped into my inbox. There are also memberships for museums or national parks, or you could even gift a substack subscription!

For those of you who celebrate Christmas, why should Secret Santa be only for the office? My family has really enjoyed this. It takes the stress away from so much “required” shopping. Some of us would team up to help each other make or find gifts for our secret person. It allows us to be thoughtful about giving, instead of frantically trying to cross everyone off our list.

Another fun tradition my mom started when we were kids was the Wishing Tree. We wrote down on a scrap of paper what was great and challenging about this last year and what our hopes were for the next year. This offered a calm time of reflection while allowing us to share our hopes and dreams and to support each other in the new year. We rolled up our little paper and put it on the tree, making a wish with the support of our family. Each year, we got to uncurl that paper and chat about how it went.

What holiday traditions do you have? If you try any of these for the first time, please come back and comment below sharing how it went!

I am NOT religious at all, but I do love a Christmas Market. This was from our trip to Köln, Germany.