A Very Sustainable Christmas?
We read a couple of articles in the guardian last week, it’s what our lunch times normally consists of.
The net result is we end up with a biased echo chamber based polarised world view. But We Are Where We Are and so we must do with it what we must.
The first was a headline about how ‘1 in 12 dream of a turkey free Christmas’. Which is an interesting headline, it got us wondering how they found that stat out. Dream analysis? Dream interpretation? Some inception based scenario where they planted the idea of a turkey free Christmas and hope the idea took over?
Well we actually clicked the article and it was quite interesting. More people want to eat less meat for Christmas. So supermarkets have increased the range of Turkey alternatives. This will be our third meat free Christmas and while it was sweet that our mums made us vegan pigs in Blankets (delicious by the way) it’s not so fun when extended family members comment about how you’re still ‘doing that fad then’.
So yay for that.
-----------------
Wrapping paper. Yes it is the devil. One of our team prides themselves on having a Derren Brown-esque ability to guess what it’s in a present just from a shake, a quick caress and a deep stare into the givers eyes. While this may be the most pointless use of such a gift, we think that probably wrapping paper (apart from brown recycled kraft paper tied with recycled twine) should be banned, even for small children. The joy of a present is surely not the tacky over the top glittery snowmen or smiling penguins printed on cheap non-recyclable wrapping paper covered in a plastic shrink wrap, but it’s in receiving a gift that someone who cares about you has taken the time to get for you.
------------------
Christmas trees. Yes, everybody loves a Christmas tree. Apart from miserable single dads who can’t even be bothered to go to the effort of getting a tree up 3 days a year to keep their visiting kids happy.
They provide joy. The family get round, put Christmas music on, decorate it, swear incessantly as the lights get tangled and take 45 minutes to 6 hours to untangle and you spend until the 4th beer on Christmas eve promising to never to do that to yourself again. They have presents under them on Christmas day. They smell nice. They shed pines when they feel like it and your dog gets confused by them while the cat keeps whacking that shiny oversized bauble that you wish your Gran didn’t buy you.
Well, apparently they’re bad too.
But how bad? Well...from this wonderful article we read, pretty bad. Either they are made from plastic (BAD) or involve cutting down trees (VERY BAD). Then when they chucked away they get burnt (VERY VERY BAD).
Upon reading this article, all hope died.
Until, we learnt that Wyevale have a potted version, which you can plant in the garden once Christmas is over! Which will actually contribute to removing CO2 from the environment! (VERY VERY GOOD!)
So there is hope for Christmas after all.
Bah humbug.