4 Ways to Rebel this Christmas

An article by Frank    3 Comments

I’m a big fan of not stressing at Christmas time, so rather than spend time writing up a new post to encourage people to do Christmas differently, I thought I would just repost one I wrote last year

1. Eat Less

We all know it and we’ve all participated in it. We know it as simply having a good feed. It could also be known as Christmas gluttony.

Christmas is a time for many of us to enjoy good food with family and friends we love. Food can be a good means of enhancing a social occasion and there is no shortage of social occassions at Christmas time.

Far too many people throw their natural checks and balances out when it comes to food at Christmas time and we engage in socially acceptable gluttony. We forget our culinary sensibilities and we engorge ourselves to the point of often feeling bloated and like we’ve overdone it. This gets multiplied by the amount of social occassions that we participate in. Christmas gluttony is often not just limited to Christmas day, but the many Christmas occasions we take part in during the lead up to Christmas.

Let’s rebel against those social norms this Christmas. Let’s engage the rule of moderation. Lets enjoy the food and the social settings and most importantly, the people, without engorging ourselves and engaging in Christmas gluttony.

2. Spend Less

Christmas has become notorious for the blind spend. Christmas is a time when many of us throw our financial sensibilities out the window and spend up large, often using money we haven’t made yet… the technical term for such spending is using “credit”.

Far too often we spend the following year paying for the Christmas we racked up on the credit card. That method of paying for gifts to make sure we keep friends and family happy with gifts/stuff they don’t need and having a gluttoness feed is getting many families in trouble.

Such spending might grease the wheels of a debauched economic system, but why not spend within your means. Or better yet, if you want to keep the economic wheels turning by making sure money is still flowing, why not spend less on the usual Christmas junk and donate the saved money to City Missions, homeless shelters or various other humanitarian organisations. That way the money keeps flowing, but it’s placed in areas where it is needed.

If you’ve got a big family and you’re buying for stacks of people, why not look at rotating who each person/couple in the family buys for and only buy for one each Christmas rather than everyone. Rotate who you buy for each Christmas.

3. Get less

It might shock your friends and family when you tell them, but why not let them know that you don’t actually need any stuff this Christmas that’s only going to clutter your home up even more. Encourage them to save the money. If they really do want to buy you something, encourage them to check out a charitable alternative like TEAR Fund’s Gift for Life or one of the many other alternative gift catalogues on offer around the world.

4. Love More

Christmas is notorious for the old problem of having to spend time with family you really don’t like. We grit our teeth and bear it. For some the facade goes down ok, for others Christmas can sometimes turn to custard.

Then there’s the stress. Often we get so caught up in getting everything done – the presents purchased and wrapped, attending a bunch of different functions, getting the food together, organizing the travel and who we’re going to be with on Christmas day – we get so caught up in getting it all right that we often don’t actually see and hear the people around us.

Let’s be different this Christmas. Let’s commit to loving more. Let’s commit to putting the stress aside and seeing the people around us. Lets commit to laying aside our personal niggles and loving even those family members who frustrate us. Let’s make a conscious commitment to rebeling against the Christmas norms by commiting to loving more.

Feel free to add a comment with your own ideas on ways to be rebel against the ghosts of Christmas commercialism and stress.