Gifts and guests

I've mentioned this before - I really struggle with trying to be sustainable when it comes to stuff for other people: giving gifts, having people around etc. When I buy stuff excessively packaged in plastic, or *ahem* fly to the other side of the world, it's often because I want to do something that's nice for someone else.

I was interested to read a really clear explanation of this conflict in Niki Harre's Psychology for a Better World (see the chapter on identity; also pp. 137-138). There are a lot of big ideas in this book. One is that you want to act in a way that is consistent with your identity, but in your life you have multiple identities that are sometimes in conflict. In this case, you are a greenie - so you want to be environmentally responsible - but you are also a mother/daughter/sister/friend and a member of a society that traditionally gives gifts - so you want to give a nice gift.

She also explains that you empathise much more easily with one person, especially one similar to you, than you do with any more than one. (Millions of people will suffer because of climate change vs your Nan will really like this present? Nan wins, hands down.)

So it's not just me! It is actually really hard to reconcile wanting to act in a sustainable way with wanting to do something nice for someone else, when those two things are in conflict.

So, Christmas is kind of hard. I think maybe the solution is to resolve the conflict by being creative and coming up with a solution that is both sustainable AND nice for someone else.

There are some excellent present ideas that are both nice to get and local/eco-friendly.

Who wouldn't want a gift voucher for a cleaner to come in and clean your house?!

The Christmas present challenge

Yes, I found it hard to reconcile Christmas with trying to be "green". For example: present shopping.

You don't want to give someone a crap present, right? And you don't want to be all sackcloth and ashes and puritanical, because it's Christmas and you're supposed to be celebrating, right? And yet ... there's all this other stuff you care about, so what to do?

A clever greenie friend has a good solution: make sure to give people things they want. She asks people what they want and tells people what she wants.

This is in fact what we always did in my family, and it's a good system. Even when you (obviously) can have a good guess that it's coming, opening up the paper on a gift that you really really want is still a great feeling. And likewise, it's pretty satisfying giving someone something that you know that they're thrilled with.

However, as a veteran I can give a key tip to avoid disappointment:

1. Don't pick an item that requires the exercise of personal taste. As a teenager I asked my (predictably) unhip middle-aged parents for new jeans for Christmas ... Result: misery.