I'll be the first to admit - I was a total Scrooge this year. While I used to be a cookie baking, tree trimming, carol singing, "totally-get-into-it-fool," - I have changed. Some of that change is a little sad because I miss feeling good about the season, but some of that change is a very positive thing. Or at least the humble beginnings and growing pains of a very positive thing.

I was becoming tired of the gimme, gimme commercialization of the holiday season. I was weary of feeling all the pressures of meeting the expectations of others, despite whatever hardship it imposed on me or my family. And I could see the little Christmas monsters looming (i.e. "you don't really love me unless you spend at least three Franklins ...") in the wings. I did not want C & C becoming the greedy little materialistic elves, expecting a full winter wardrobe plus every new video game that came down the pike.

We started with some changes next year and are hoping to take a bigger plunge next year. In the meantime, I thought I'd share my collected links for putting meaning back into the holidays.

"I guess the most important thing would be to think about whether or not the things that you're doing are actually making the season joyful for you or not. Keep real careful track and try to figure out if that's what you really want from the Holidays.You can't change your life or your celebrating patterns overnight. But given that the people in this chat will be around for many more Christmases, there's plenty of time to observe yourself and find what makes you feel happy and joyful."
Transcript of chat with Bill McKibben, author of Hundred Dollar Holidays published on the New Dream.
http://www.newdream.org/holiday/mckibbenchat.php

Prince of Peace Episcopal Church in Woodland Hills, California, has a comprehensive catalog of offerings at the Alternative Christmas Faire on its website (http://www.popwh.org/1VM/AltChristmas/AltChristmasFaire.htm).

The "alternative Christmas" trend has actually been around at least since the early 1970s, when a Washington, D.C. man named Bob Kochtitzky created Alternatives for Simple Living (http://www.simpleliving.org) out of what he described as "anger toward corporations and individuals who were prostituting society's soul by exploiting all our celebrations for profit and privilege." With funds from friends back home in Jackson, Mississippi, Kochtitzky says, he published The Alternative Christmas Catalogue, and the movement was off and running. In 1980, churches began responding to a Christmas Campaign for Congregations packet entitled "Whose Birthday Is It, Anyway?" The campaign counted nine denominational participants by 1988 and is now a familiar feature in many congregations.

In 1980, Harriet Prichard, then director of children's ministries at a Pasadena, California Presbyterian church, organized a market in which children and many adults sold relief and self-development goods and animals for persons in need in the Third World as alternative gifts. By 2000 there were 312 such markets, held in 43 U.S. states and England, Holland, Japan and Korea. Prichard's organization is now called Alternative Gifts International (AGI). All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena and All Saints in Beverly Hills, California, were among the first to host "official" Alternative Gift Markets in conjunction with AGI.

Organizations like Center for a New American Dream (http://www.newdream.org) and Alternative Gifts International (http://www.altgifts.org/bin/site/templates/splash.asp) offer organizing guides, templates, and downloadable materials for congregations and organizations that want to offer an alternative Christmas—or other celebration—of their own.

If you could imagine giving your loved ones anything this holiday season, a water buffalo may not come to mind. But what if you knew that this water buffalo, or dozens of other livestock would change lives and bring hope and possibility to the people who need it most?
http://www.heifer.org/holiday/

Ten Thousand Villages provides vital, fair income to Third World people by marketing their handicrafts and telling their stories in North America.
http://www.tenthousandvillages.com/


 

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