Give Something Good

We’ve decided that the holidays have a personality disorder.  On one hand, this time of year says “I will bring you a warm, peaceful glow, lovely music, pretty winter scenes, and nice, happy times with your loved ones.”  Before too long, another side of the season rears its ugly little head.  Instead of peace and joy, you find yourself listening to hours of in-store Christmas jingles, running around another faceless mall in a desperate attempt to check everyone off your list, and, finally, making awkward small talk with distant relatives while dressed up in an itchy reindeer sweater wondering if your Aunt Edna will notice that the ceramic bear cookie jar you bought her is a piece of crap. 

Sound familiar?  We’ve always had an inkling that the vast majority of gifts exchanged in this country are a waste of time and money, not to mention a major cause of stress and annoyance, but now we have proof this is the case—thanks to some math-and-stats heavy lifting done by a researcher named Joel Waldfogel back in 1993.  Waldfogel (no, we’re not making that name up) put some facts and figures together on the gifts swapped around the holidays to come up with the concept of the “dead loss of Christmas.”  The dead loss of Christmas is the amount of money spent every year on gifts nobody wants or needs.  Waldfogel discovered that the dead loss generated by the U.S. Christmas season alone is an estimated 4-13 billion dollars every year. 

Let’s go back to that cookie jar you bought your aunt.  It turns out, in return dear Aunt Edna bought you next year’s itchy sweater that you will hate and only wear once; the problem is she paid $40 for it.  The kitschy cookie jar put you back $25, and just like that we’ve added $65 to the dead loss of Christmas.  Say you get something you like?  After all, your girlfriend knows your taste and picked you up a stack of CDs from bands she knows you love.  The only glitch:  you’ve already bought a lot of that music on iTunes and would never pay $17.99 for a whole CD.   Dead loss gets a bite again, as it does every time someone spends more money than you would have spent on the same item.  Even if—miracle of miracles—Aunt Edna upgrades this year to a sweater you actually like, she will almost always pay more for it than you would (by not taking time to shop around for a good price or simply by buying at the height of price inflation right before the holidays). 

So, what is the point of rushing around spending lots of money and getting burnt out in the meantime?  We’re not sure either.  If the point of the holiday season is to spend time with people you care about, to reflect on the joy of the occasion, and to take a moment off from your regular hectic schedule, frantically swapping gifts that no one wants seems counter-productive. 

Here’s one alternative to exchanging vast piles of tchochke—the Rock ‘n Renew Sustainability Bag, which we have filled with things that will actually get used, will help the earth instead of adding to its burden, and whose proceeds go to support an important cause.  More details on the bag are below.  There are many other ways to escape the dead loss of the season:  simply call for a gift-buying moratorium in your family or friend circle (you will be surprised at how many people greet this idea with joy and relief).  Plan an event instead—a wintry outdoors activity, meeting for a movie, drinks, or hot cocoa.  Or decide jointly to give the money you would have spent on gifts to a cause you want to support. (Imagine what a global impact could be made for $4-13 billion dollars.)  On Christmas Day itself, encourage your family to focus less on gift-exchange and more on enjoying the day and each other.  Remember that the dead loss generated just by the holidays in the United States is an estimated 4-13 billion dollars every season.  Opt out of that mess and give something good this year. 

A donation of $135 or more to the Rock ‘n Renew Foundation will give you the Sustainability Gift Bag to keep for yourself or give as a gift. (tell them where to click to buy it on the website or better yet have a button right after this blog entry).  The proceeds will go towards building the Rock ‘n Renew Ecology Center in Bayonne, N.J., a sustainably-constructed center with an organic garden, facilities to teach school kids in the area about ecology and conservation, and a small outdoor pavilion for cultural events in the community that will highlight our responsibility to our planet and its people. 

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