Yarmo - christmas

The Burden of Christmas, exemplified

2021-12-19T13:00:16+00:00

Introducing CB</h2>
Something happened yesterday which subsequently consumed a significant portion of my attention for the rest of the day and I decided to try and put into words what happened, what I thought, how I reacted and how I should have reacted.</p>
While this post is the consequence of an interaction with a friend I'll nickname Carte Bleue (she'll understand =D) or CB for short, anything I say here is in no way a critique on her. This rant is directed towards Christmas and its commercialization. This interaction could have happened with anyone. It is my privilege to be able to consider CB a friend in my life and there is nothing I would to jeopardize that.</p>

The Jar of Cookies</h2>
For no particular reason, I baked cookies yesterday. Dutch kruidnoten (wikipedia</a>) to be precise. I bought most of the spices I needed back in October and missed the date to bake the cookies on the 5th of December as I had planned (due to lacking a mortar and pestle and a few more spices).</p>
So yesterday, unsure what to do with my day, I went out, treated myself to a mortar and pestle, purchased a few more spices and baking soda and got baking.</p>
While the dough was in the fridge doing whatever it is dough does in a fridge, I remembered CB was dropping by later in the afternoon for a minute or less to drop something off. The proverbial lightbulb ignited.</p>
I found an old glass jar, cleaned it, filled it with fresh-out-of-the-oven kruidnoten, wrote "Joyeux Noël" with a smiley on a small piece of laid paper, attached the note to the jar using some cotton string and called it a day. It looked cute AF :)</p>
Time passed. The buzzer rang. I opened the door. There was CB. I handed over the jar of cookies.</p>
After an expression of gratitude, she said…</p>
"Well, now I have nothing for you."</p>
Queue the rant.</p>

Hypocrisy much</h2>
Again, this is no way a critique on CB. Anyone I know would have reacted the same way. Hell, I would have reacted that way! So yeah, everything I am about to say applies to myself as much as it does to anybody else.</p>
Newton's Third Law of Christmas Gifting</h2>

For any Christmas gift gifted, an opposite gift is expected.
— Isaac Newton (somewhat paraphrased)</p> </blockquote>
This law that governs modern-age Christmas rituals is what I and many others call the Burden of Christmas.</p>
How is it possible that I cannot give a jar of cookies without giving a feeling of guilt in one and the same gesture? I did not expect a gift in return. In fact, I'd rather not receive gifts at all</a>.</p>
Human nature?</h2>
You might counter with the following argument: it's just human nature. We don't like debts. Living in a society means giving and taking. A good-natured person wouldn't want to take without giving back.</p>
Yeah, I get that, but hear me out. Had I handed over the jar in August or any other month that does not start with "D" and end with "ecember", none of this would have happened. CB gave me a jar of a homemade product a year back, I did not feel an urge to immediately return the gesture.</p>
What is it about Christmas that completely changes our perspective and our primary response to receiving a gift?</p>
I don't know for sure. If you have interesting reading material on the subject, please do share with me</a>, I'm genuinely curious.</p>
Guilt flows both ways</h2>
So I intended to give a jar of cookies and instead I handed over a burden.</p>
Could I not have foreseen that?</p>
Well, as a matter of fact, I did. There was a moment in the process yesterday when I strongly considered not giving the jar and wait until January. Because there was a chance she would express guilt for not having something to return on the spot. Because if that would happen, I would feel guilt for putting her in that position. And I wanted none of that. I just had a surplus of cookies.</p>
Damn you, Jar of Cookies, source of all evil!</p>
Seriously though, this is messed up.</p>
I'm certain many people don't have these issues. They know each other well enough to look through this reflective and hazardous haze and see the things for what they truly are.</p>
But I suspect that many among us do have to contend with the Burden of Christmas during the December month. Or November. Or whenever it is the Christmas shitshow starts these days.</p>
Or maybe not and I am just weird. Very plausible too.</p>
Game theory applied to Christmas</h2>
This whole story strongly reminds me of the Prisoner's Dilemma (wikipedia</a>) and, according to the dozens of online articles I just found (DuckDuckGo search results</a>), it does so for many other people too.</p>
Since we don't usually communicate our intention to prepare gifts for others, how are they supposed to know if they should prepare something in return? After all, you don't want to be that person that doesn't gift back, or so society tells us. So it's in your best interest to prepare a gift for the largest number of people, just in case. Which leads to all those people facing the same dilemma. And so on.</p>
Huh, I wonder if the marketing industry has caught on to this phenomenon and would use it to their advantage. /S</a></p>
My reaction</h2>
So how did I react?</p>
Since putting her on the spot put me on the spot, I don't remember with 100% certainty, but I think I chuckled and said "That's okay!".</p>
O agony, thee malignant incubus!</p>
"That's okay</em>"???</p>
This implies a gift in return would indeed have been a desirable outcome, but "hey, it's okay, I forgive you". That was not my intended message!</p>
So in the blog version of the "esprit de l'escalier" (wikipedia</a>), what should I have said?</p>
I am not sure. Anything along the lines of "well, that was not the intention" may come across as disdainful, as in "I wasn't expecting you to give something in return".</p>
I am most certainly overthinking at this point. Any response would probably be acceptable as long as you point out that it was not your intention to give them the Burden of Christmas.</p>
Perhaps this blog post is also a half decent—if delayed—response. If I could have condensed the entirety of this post in a 30 seconds monologue, that might have done the trick.</p>
To CB</h2>
I am not sure yet if I'll send a link to this to CB. I am quite conscious of my tendency to overthink and assuming (or hoping) that others don't.</p>
But if I did, well, hey there CB :)</p>
Hope you enjoyed the cookies! They were a silly little thing I just wanted to give you. For fun. Made me feel happy to prepare the jar. I tried painting a message on it but that miserably failed :)</p>
I don't want anything in return, even though it's December. If you know me well enough, you'll understand.</p>
And if that still doesn't alleviate the Burden of Christmas, let's organize a fun movie night again. As of January. After all the madness has died down.</p>

My 2020s Christmas Gift Pledge

2021-12-16T11:22:57+00:00

Christmas and consumerism</h2>
Christmas in the 2020s = consumerism. You know it, I know it. I am not even going to give an introduction on the subject. Even the Pope has condemned the commercialization of Christmas.</p>
So, you're either here because you want to read the blog post, or you haven't received from me a Christmas gift that lives up to our society's norms, asked me "what gives?" and I sent you here.</p>
Me the Consumer</h2>
I live in a consumer society ergo I am a consumer. Be that as it may, I won't be your typical consumer though.</p>
I turn off the radio when ads come on. I look away from a TV screen during ad breaks. If I still see an ad of a product somewhere, I am instantly less prone to using it or recommending it.</p>
If I see a single billboard promoting some TV show, I'll instantly know the people behind it don't have enough faith in the show that it would organically grow an audience and thus feel the need to shove it down our throats instead. I'll pass on said show.</p>
I don't use Amazon. I condemn its use.</p>
I try and support local to the best of my abilities.</p>
Given all these idiosyncracies and more, you do not expect me to do Christmas like a well-behaving consumer, do you?</p>
Doing things differently</h2>
So I want to write a pledge, a set of rules to live by and guide me through the yearly burden that is Christmas, so that whenever I am in doubt about a gift-related decision, I can just read the pledge and know what to do.</p>
I want to make the pledge last a decade so that I won't stray from my convictions and my rejection of consumerism. I can abandon the pledge in the future but that would require me to write a new one, forcing me to re-evaluate everything in the current pledge.</p>
I also don't expect Christmas to become less commercial any time soon so I'll need this pledge for the foreseeable future anyway.</p>
I want to make my pledge public so that I can send people to it whenever my gift-related decisions are being questioned.</p>
Message to Future Me</h2>
Future Me, if you're here because peer pressure is causing you to doubt the pledge, don't. Just don't.
— 2021 Me</p>
The Pledge on Giving Gifts</h2>
My gifts will not be bought if possible. I will attempt to make something personalized, thoughtful and unique using my hands. It can be big, small, silly, helpful.</p>
My gifts are disposable. Receiving a gift is a burden, therefore no hard feelings if you decide to get rid of it.</p>
My gifts can be ephemeral. I'd rather show you my appreciation of our personal connection by spending quality time together than giving you something. An experience is worth more than an object.</p>
The rules above aren't always suitable or desirable depending on the receiver. In case a gift is bought:</p>
My gifts will not contain plastic. If unavoidable, it will contain minimal plastic wrapping. Objects made entirely of plastic are a no-no. The only exception: custom-made items containing plastic from a 3D printer (while still plastic, it wasn't mass-produced).</p>
My gifts will not be tech, especially surveillance technology. The only exception: something I built myself using an arduino or a single-board-computer like a raspberry pi.</p>
My gifts will never be obtained through Amazon. Some underpaid Amazon worker would have needed to work extra shifts and pee in a bottle to make sure the gift arrives on time. No gift of mine will ever require corporation-organized slavery to be given. Or, for that matter, any slavery of any kind.</p>
The Pledge on Receiving Gifts</h2>
I do not wish to receive bought gifts. Let's hang out for a bit and do something we both enjoy. If you truly feel an urge to give something tangible, write a poem, make a drawing, bake cookies, print out a picture of us and put it in a (non-plastic) frame.</p>
Evidently, this isn't always a realistic expectation. So, a few more guidelines:</p>
I will most likely be polite and accept a bought gift but please do not take it as a given that I will use the gift or, for that matter, keep it. It will depend. One of my ambitions this decade is to live smaller and possess less. Receiving stuff I don't want or need is counterproductive to said ambition.</p>
An exception: surveillance technology. Any gift made by Big Tech that contains microphones, cameras or other tracking capabilities will be unceremoniously rejected on the spot.</p>
Another exception: anything that goes against any of my convictions. Think objects made entirely out of plastic, objects that could cause pollution or waste of resources, objects made through corporation-organized slavery.</p>
If a gift was obtained through Amazon, you and I are going to have a chat.</p>
Conclusion</h2>
Hope you enjoyed the read and—if you know me personally—better understand how I think about Christmas and act when it comes to gifts.</p>