Is Christmas Sustainable?


What do you think? Is Christmas sustainable? How would it all work in a changed world?


I think that Christmas is defiantly the most unsustainable time of the year, people seem to go crazy! Whether its overfilling the fridge with things like brandy butter and Brussels sprouts which were never ever going to eat but they still buy every year or the mundane and excessively wasteful task of sending out Christmas cards to every person you’ve every been acquainted with, don’t get me wrong I do love Christmas but I do feel its become ever so slightly over commercialised.

This Christmas despite being in a recession with 1.6 million people unemployed it’s estimated that we spent £34.6 billion showing that the Christmas retail takings have soared. http://www.guardian.co.uk/business/2009/dec/20/retail-stong-christmas-consumer-spending

The sheer amount that parents spend on their children is shocking! Working in a shop I’ve seen people spend thousands on toys! Are these children going to benefit from having every single Lego set in the world? No. Why not spend time together rather than splashing out on lavish gifts. In this News of the world article http://www.newsoftheworld.co.uk/news/598822/Average-family-will-spend-20-more-than-last-Christmas.html its estimated an average family will be spending £665 which is an increase of 20%! I think that people have lost the real meaning of Christmas, it should be more family orientated instead of the money making machine its been manipulated in to. Also the packaging they put on these toys! Where do they make it? It’s nearly impossible to get in to it, with all this emphasis on being greener is it really necessary to shrink wrap and pack everything, I think it could be done much more eco friendly. I also feel that people should be more aware of the options they have with their Christmas waste, like recycling their Christmas cards and wrapping paper.

I say that but obviously travel must increase at Christmas as people want to get back to their homes to be with their family and this is obviously not sustainable but I can’t really blame people for doing it, that’s what the seasons about.
People are taking the season too far though, the crazy people who light up their house like the Blackpool illuminations! I mean I don’t understand why you would do that because it must be costing them a fortune and I realise some people do it to raise money like a local funeral directors in Brafield raise money for cancer research but I think there are other more cost effective ways you could do it.
Finally the food! Do we need to eat it all, my family seem to buy enough chocolates to feed the county and a turkey big enough for 30 and we don’t even eat half of this food. I think its a big waste its just over excessive because we could have saved on so much packaging and transportation costs if everyone just thought about what they NEED.