Sustainable Tarpon Springs - The Quality of Our Holidays

Have you ever thought back on your childhood memories of special holidays and had the nostalgia of your magical recollections nearly bring tears to your eyes?  Does it seem as though things were ‘different in those days’?  With the wide variety of ages in our population, I’m certain we’d have amazing stories to share and hear about our perceptions of the past, and the ways our world has changed.

I know one thing for certain.  Commemorations of all kinds have been usurped from the original purity of ‘intentional celebration’.  It is an amazing miracle if someone hasn’t figured out how to put a consumer spin on something we universally enjoy.  Why have we bought into the consumerism so readily?

I remember Halloween fun back when apples were a safe treat.  Somewhere along the way, the idea of a fresh apple became tainted, poisoned in our minds by an urban myth of a razor or some other evil trick.  Packaged candy became the safer option, (although I’d relish an organic apple any day over the alternative, flavorless, high fructose corn syrup candy.)  I shudder at both the artificial ingredients and the abundant waste of wrappers.

From now until New Year’s, we will be bombarded with ads for the things we need in order to be happy, feel loved, and to give love.  In order to remember the roots and quality of what we are gathering to celebrate, we’d do best to open our eyes and take back our minds!  This is the most time intensive period of ‘corporate-advertisement-inundation’, (although there isn’t a month without some reason to buy stuff for happiness, pleasure, or love.)  

There was a day, not all that long ago, when holiday pleasures had no purchasing pressures attached to them.  Celebration traditions were filled with family and / or community games, music, special foods, and story-telling to remember the ‘reasons for the seasons’ (as many folks remind us about Christmas nowadays).  But we don’t have to be religious to appreciate the simplicity and wholesomeness of reorienting our celebrations to have less consumerism, less waste, and more meaning.

I realize many retailers are highly dependent upon the fourth quarter earnings, and I’ve said it before, if we all shifted our emphasis to birthday giving, all of retail would be in much better shape!  Birthdays of family and friends are each and every day of the year.  It would be fantastic for retailers to have a more dependable sense of year-round traffic and purchasing.

Thankfully, Thanksgiving is relatively commercial-free!  If you really want to deepen the quality of this holiday, try giving to the local food bank efforts who provide the fixings for those who can’t afford them.  Gather friends and family together to serve Thanksgiving dinner at a local charity kitchens.  This is Thanksgiving!  

Turn off the TV, and you won’t be tempted by any of the sales that actually begin on Thanksgiving night!  Stay home with your family, continuing to celebrate the non-commercial reasons to be thankful.  

By rethinking how we have been captive to corporate America, and refusing to be ‘played’ - we are reclaiming our humanity.  We are reclaiming our celebrations, our family and community connections, and finding the deeper quality in our holidays.  Be creative!  Be the change!  It is more life-giving and more sustainable!