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My gently used holiday season

Email|Link|Comments (4) Posted by David Beard, Globe Staff December 15, 2008 02:46 PM

By Beth Daley, Globe Staff

When I was growing up, my mother used to place paper grocery bags filled with second hand books under the Christmas tree for each of her six children. While we would occasionally get something new, circumstance and her Depression-era ways made my brothers and sisters joke years later we were part of the first-ever recycled Christmas. Even the wrapping paper was reused four or five times and we were yelled at if we didn't open presents carefully enough.

Then we grew up, got jobs and, at least compared to our early life, got rich.

We left my mothers' parsimoniousness in the dust. Sony walkmans, then iPods, filled our Christmas stockings. We bought boots, dresses, fancy coats and even airplane tickets for each other. I remember getting a second-hand alarm clock from my mother in my 20s, thanking her politely, and throwing it away once I got back to Boston. Then I bought a new one.

But in these extraordinary economic and environmental times, I’m seeing people acting a bit more like my mom in the pursuit of presents this holiday season: They are reaching for creativity instead of cash.

My friend Catherine and her boyfriend are making chutney. A playground mother I met is going through her substantial book collection and giving favorites to friends and family with a note why they might like it and why she did.

My husband and I are making cds for family and friends.

Who knew my cosmopolitan friend knew how to make chutney? Or that the playground mom loves Haruki Murakami’s books as much as I do? In burning the cds, I even discovered my husband likes Neil Diamond. (Sometimes.)

I know I’m recycling my childhood Christmas experience into present day quaint memories. The truth is at the time I wanted a pair of skates. Then a pair of really tight Sassoon jeans.

Yet today, as paychecks decline and global warming pollution rises, I’m finally finding a comfortable place between my mother’s frugality and my consumptive inclinations. I'm buying some new carefully considered presents, mostly for children. But for the adults in my life, I try to keep it from the heart with previously loved, or handmade gifts.

I call it the partially recycled Christmas.

I’m even reusing wrapping paper from last year.

tags christmas, greenhouse gas, new, old, presents, recycled

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4 comments so far...

Thanks, Beth! Long before the term "yuppie" existed, I worked with young professionals who made pasta and breads as holidays gifts, where finding the perfect book as a gift, especially if it was out of print!, was considered about the best thing you could do, and where we took the time to get together and share good food and drink. Being green isn't about consuming something slightly different that some company somewhere has slapped a "green" label on -- it's about reducing the consumption of all the resources needed to make and transport something to our doorsteps. If there is an up side to our current economic downturn, maybe it will be a reawakening of "Yankee ingenuity" -- that wonderful thrifty, creative, quirky, and most of all, generous spirit (because it was all about making sure we all had what we needed) that came into existence early in our region's history when we could no longer import everything we used from the British.

And we can't forget that so many of our neighbors are going through terrible losses this holiday. Making donations rather than giving gifts is another terrific green idea.

Posted by JP Gal December 15, 08 05:39 PM

thanks for this, beth. i think the whole planet is shifting; it has to be, at least. and all the crazy things i remember about my family's "recycling" (the jar of used crisco under the sink for clam cakes, for instance) now seem to ring true in some way. this year we're having a craigslist xmas, and my son will love his used bball hoop set and my daughter will thrill to receive her $25 dollhouse made by someone else's grandpa. the only presents we'll buy new are the ones that will someday be able to be handed-down again.
thanks from LA.

Posted by hollybackgirl December 15, 08 10:51 PM

Your childhood days are mine as well. Our stockings were daddy's big socks stuffed with nuts, apples and oranges. Mom knew how to stuff a stocking. Her thriftiness never left me. I mix a mean dry coco package it and have been giving it as gifts for yrs. I think I have looked weird for yrs especially to my 20 something daughter now that she makes her own money she does the same. Thanks for the ideas you gave I plan to incorporate them in my giving, Gifts from the heart are best. Thanks

Posted by jordan Ellis December 16, 08 01:05 AM

Well Beth, if CV gets to be your cosmopolitan girl friend than I get to be your cosmopolitan guy friend. LOL Greetings from LA. Steve J (Harborfields 1984) Great article and I think having been raised in the same community we can all relate to similar holiday stories. In fact, I learned that postage stamps and who knew, back in the day when we were highschool students, that when mom gave us Mobil Gas cards, that they would be such ideal gifts. As they say history has a tendency to repeat itself, and in spite of these very difficult economic and political times its nice to see that as a society we are in some way returning to the basics. ANd

Posted by Steve Jones December 18, 08 12:02 AM