How to enjoy every holiday
Thursday, October 30th, 2008Corey Colwell-Lipson and Lynn Colwell, co-authors Celebrate Green! have this advice.
Q: Can you talk about the importance of celebrations and tradition?
A: Celebrations and traditions have become more and more important as families have become fractured on many levels. The majority of Americans live far from where they were born. We move every few years. Few of us have more than two generations (parents and children) living in our homes. We spend the majority of our daily lives surrounded by people with whom we may have little in common except for work. At the first opportunity to leave home, we do.
Yet nothing strengthens the bonds of family like shared experience, and celebrations generally bring us together to share, laugh, and remember. They are a time when we can build, create and fashion our personal history in the company of those whose history we share. So in the face of diminishing ties, holidays and their accompanying traditions have become the glue that binds and holds families together.
Q: It seems that so many people get stressed out over celebrations. Why?
As with so many other aspects of our culture, being perfect is our highest (if often unspoken) aspiration. Whether it is the perfect body, the perfectly set table, the perfect car, the perfect football game, or perfect health, we are a nation of strivers toward “doing it right!” Of course, this can be a positive thing when it inspires us to greatness. But all this clamoring for perfection has created a nation of people who cannot relax, for whom nothing is ever “good enough”, and who spend as much time worrying about whether to use the red tablecloth or the white, as they do about whether to have a child!
The stress that we feel around holidays and celebrations has little to do with the events themselves and everything to do with our self-perceptions and expectations. If we are afraid we will “look bad” or are basing our lives around pleasing others, meeting their needs or surpassing the Joneses, occasions, instead of being welcomed as a time of joy and pleasure, can cause us tremendous angst, fear and depression.
In Celebrate Green! we describe our definition of green as being good for people, good for the Earth and good for the community. “Good for people” means not only thinking about those who make or grow the goods that find their way into our lives, but good for us. “Good for people” means that we look at who we are and whether the way we are living our lives is in concert with our beliefs.
Questioning ourselves about our stress and being willing to shut off the perpetual need for perfectionism regardless of the cause can help us enjoy our celebrations.
Q: How can going green affect celebrations for the better?
In addition to the well-known 3Rs—reduce, reuse, recycle–we add the 3Gs—good for people, good for the Earth and good for the community, to our definition of green.
If you take these six ideals into consideration when planning and executing any holiday or celebration, you cannot help but affect the occasion for the better. (Unless, of course, you’re already doing it!)
Many new family traditions can be established on the basis of any of these six ideals. For instance, establish that prior to every major holiday or celebration (birthdays are especially worthy of consideration), a family council will be called to discuss the ways in which you can reduce, reuse and recycle. Kids love to be involved in planning and often are the leaders when it comes to new. So involving your children in decision making before a big event can become a meaningful tradition.
For holidays where gift giving is a major aspect, putting the 3Gs to work is going to help the purchaser as well as the recipient feel great. For instance, think about buying a fair trade item so you know that the person who made it was paid and treated fairly. Or choose something recycled or repurposed, an item made from a renewable resource such as bamboo or sustainable types of wood, or purchase something, the sale of which benefits a cause.
Q: Green is the new black these days, but is going green too expensive in this economy?
You know this is the most important issue we can discuss because it is the greatest perceived barrier to people deciding to take steps to “go green.” Somehow the perception about being eco-friendly is that it is expensive. In reality, this simply isn’t true. Of course there are expensive green products. And that’s the direction we’ve been encouraged to think about by people who have a vested interest in pushing us to steer away from these products and toward their own (until quite recently when companies and marketers have realized the value in the “green” tag).
The reality of green is that it is the least expensive way to live (and celebrate). Where is the cost in reducing, reusing and recycling? Yes, it does cost to turn plastic bottles into fabric and shoes. But there is no personal sacrifice involved.
When it comes to buying green, yes, there are some very expensive choices out there. But we need to ask ourselves a few questions about this. Are we willing to support companies that are doing good by paying a bit more for something that is better made, will last longer and/or has less impact on the Earth? Do we want to live out our values when we shop? Do we want to encourage more manufacturers and growers to do the right thing? Do we care about other people and how their lives are affected by what we choose to purchase?
Organic food is a big issue because food in this country has traditionally cost so little. We pay less for our food as a percentage of income than almost any other country in the world, an average of 7%. The higher the income, the less we pay for our most necessary commodity. In the poorest countries, up to 90% of a family’s income goes toward food. So we’re spoiled by our wealth of inexpensive choices. If we want to buy organic, we may need to increase the percentage of our income spent on food and spend less on other things. We also can take advantage of sales, coupons, buying in bulk, co-ops and lots of other creative solutions.
