How Extinction Rebellion Stole Christmas

As Christmas approached in the first year of the shopping ban, my newfound frugality and burgeoning environmental awareness were twisting me in knots as I tried to think of ways to participate in this orgy of gift-giving without decimating my savings or trashing the planet more than I could help.

Not too long before, I'd heard some rumblings about this radical environmentalist group called Extinction Rebellion who were protesting in London, bringing city streets to a standstill, arguing against Fashion Week, and otherwise generally making a nuisance of themselves. I was intrigued. All this passion, chaos and rage seemed to have boiled up very suddenly out of nowhere - what was going on?

I'd had vague positive feelings about Greenpeace for a long time, but by and large was convinced that all that environmental stuff was pretty radical and woo-woo, the province of earnest, slightly scary hemp-smelling people with hairy armpits. But XR was not only huge but encompassing all kinds of people, grandmothers and businessmen and schoolchildren. I decided to look them up.

Game changer.

With my sleeping child in my arms, I watched an XR video entitled The Truth. At first I was just interested. Then I was shocked. Then I felt the bottom drop out of my stomach. As the girl with the punky haircut explained feedback loops and melting permafrost and food shortages and rising sea levels, I gripped my tablet in numb hands.

Does everyone know about this? Why isn't everyone panicking? What have we done? Oh, holy shit...

The full scale of the climate emergency caught me off guard and unsuspecting, a sucker punch to my sense of security and stability. I'm not ashamed to say, I wept. I'd brought a child into a world with a very uncertain future, and I felt powerless to protect him.

Let me loop back from existential dread to Christmas shopping (two things that go nicely hand in hand, I often find). After learning about the climate emergency, I found I had no more urge to buy joke presents, or anything really that people might not want or wouldn't use. The first year of the ban I was just a ball of stress - eco anxiety plus wanting to find the best possible gifts plus money being a little tight equalled worry from October onwards.

Some of my friends arranged a Secret Santa using a wishlist app. Enthusiastically, I filled my list with books, bath bombs and charity gifts - only to discover that the theme for the event was "dirty/inappropriate". I felt deeply humourless and a bit of a wally but just could not bring myself to buy a plastic penis of any description having just watched XR's video about, basically, the end being nigh (in the end I plumped for a book of howlingly bad self-published erotica and, okay, a penis-shaped lipstick. Apparently there's a gap in the market for sustainable or zero-waste erotic gifts...). I kept picturing every hen party inflatable penis sticking up from landfill - outliving us. What a legacy for the human race! (Told you - humourless.)

For everyone else, I considered crafting gifts, and whilst this is something I've got more confident about recently (this year I've given a knitted hat, handmade candles, body scrubs, elderflower cordial and blackberry liqueur), in 2019 I was still wrapped up (pun intended) in consumer culture and I was worried I would seem stingy or thoughtless.

Instead I decided I would support small local businesses. This turned out to be a bit of a bust - in my small town I only knew of a few local craftspeople, and I quickly discovered that doing my entire Christmas shop with them would leave me all but bankrupt. Eventually, cross and frustrated, I did my shopping exactly as I normally would, except I shopped in my hometown instead of travelling to a big city mall or market (and minus the "one for you, one for me" mathematics I have been known to apply in years previous!).

This year I was better prepared. I shopped mostly online (pandemic!), but I chose items from small businesses in the UK and favoured companies using sustainable materials and processes. It all sounds a bit "worthy", I know, but I don't in good faith want to keep pouring my family's resources into environmental destruction. To me, it's been worth a little more thought and a little more time. 

I also bit the bullet in the first year of the ban and had a chat with friends about setting a budget for our gifts, as in our mutual affection and enjoyment of gift-giving it was all getting a bit out of hand. One or two friends suggested that we no longer buy gifts for each other but focus on the littles instead. The rest of us agreed a £5 budget, which chafed at first but came to remind me of childhood Christmases, when we were given "token" gifts (often practical or edible) which were given with great love but caused the giver little stress, financially or otherwise. I also have one friend with whom I tend to exchange secondhand books - it works for us.

I realised that my personal Christmases had been overshadowed by worry. I was overthinking it, competing against the imaginary Joneses and their perfect Christmas gifts, frightened of appearing cheap (when money's tight for pretty much everyone right now anyway) and it was leeching all the enjoyment out of the process.

So please know, friends and family, that I may not have got you much this year, but I chose as carefully as I could, with the best of intentions! 

This Week's Accountability

Happily, I can report that I am now over fifty days into my current ban and doing well. Admittedly I have spent more this week than I normally do, but within shopping ban parameters - I have finished my Christmas shopping, posted the majority of my cards, and bought some local cheeses, chutneys and other nibbles (and driven Dai mad by pronouncing 'chutney' like Schmidt from New Girl), and some mulled cider and mead - I'm really looking forward to tucking in with the family over Christmas.