I’ve got mixed emotions about what the holiday season has come to mean in this country. I love getting together to break bread with friends and family, but like many, I feel the crass consumerism is at odds with a holiday that is supposed to be about love and goodwill. I also feel like the holidays puts great pressure on kindhearted people without a lot of money to squander the little money they have. So, I put together this sift talk to offer holiday suggestions and alternatives.


SMALL / LOCAL / INDEPENDENT BUSINESS CHRISTMAS

If you are going to buy gifts, then don’t give away you hard earned dollars to large corporate chain stores that siphon money from your local community to corporate headquarters out of state or even out of country. Instead, support small/independent/local businesses that struggle to compete in a corporatist economy. When you support local business, your money continues to circulate and benefit your community. Note: Videosift is a small independent business.


DON'T BUY GIFTS WITH RENT MONEY

Holidays can be stressful when you are struggling to get by. There is great societal pressure to buy presents for everyone during the holiday season and many good hearted people load up their credit cards with debt, or use money that is needed to go towards bills to buy presents. If you haven’t got the money, then don’t bankrupt yourself and raise your blood pressure. Instead, you can make something, bake something, write a song, write a poem, knit a scarf, offer to help mom and dad around the house or just write a nice thoughtful card. Use your skills. Be creative. If your relatives are exceedingly materialistic, let them know that you love them, but that you are struggling. Let them know how difficult holiday pressures can be when you are living check to check. If they love you, they'll understand. If they don't, then it's their problem, not yours.


CHEAP PLASTIC CRAP

A lot of the stuff given away at obligatory gift exchanges and family parties falls under the category of what I like to call: cheap plastic crap. Bargain basket gizmos and novelty items that might get a giggle at the party, but are instantly useless and just contribute to clutter when brought home. When you get a gift, ask yourself if it is something genuinely useful or if it’s just more meaningless stuff. There are plenty of gifts you can get that don’t contribute to clutter: gift certs for a restaurant, tickets to a play, concert, movie, museum, lecture, arboretum, etc.


THE GIFT OF IDEAS

If you have curious, intellectual people on your Christmas list, why not give them something to stimulate the grey matter?

For the jr. intellectual, Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein have written some thoughtful stuff. At a young age, I think it’s important to encourage kids to make reading a life long habit, so just about any book you think they would enjoy would be beneficial to this aim. There is plenty of great socially conscious literature for teens; try To Kill a Mockingbird, 1984, Animal Farm and Huckleberry Finn. Again, getting a teenager to read anything is going to be good for them, so get them anything you might think they’d like. For young adult activists, turn them on to Chomsky, Zinn’s People’s History of the United States or Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine, or the awesome and trippy fiction of Vonnegut, Hunter S. Thompson or Tom Robbins. There are near infinite possibilities beyond this brief reading list. Make more suggestions below.


WHAT TO GIVE THAT ASSHOLE BROTHER IN LAW

(Disclaimer: Generally, I’d say don’t give an antagonistic troll gift unless they really deserve it, and if you do so, try to give the impression that your antagonistic gift is intended as genuine and thoughtful. Lucky for me, I don’t have one of these in my family.)

Donate money to the ACLU, planned parenthood, famine relief or Greenpeace in his name. Enroll him in an adopt a tree program and make sure to put his email on the [please send me more information on how I can help] mailing list. If he protests, scold him for being ungrateful.

If you are on the receiving end of a troll gift from said brother in law, you can say... “Thanks, Chet, but I already have Glenn Beck’s latest masterpiece. Do you have the receipt?”


GIVE THE GIFT OF SIFT!!!

Don’t make the baby siftbot cry. Support your favorite website by buying mugs, t-shirts and other cool schwag in the sift gift shop. Power points and charter memberships make great gifts for sift friends or for meat space friends that you think have what it takes to be a *quality sifter.

This is kind of a rough draft of something I'd like to post every December. I'd love suggestions and ideas to improve on this admittedly limited article. Much love to my videosift family. Happy Holidays and Merry Christmas.