Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

x-mas

Stuff Takes Time

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I rung in 2009 the same way I spent December 25th – quietly at home with Elise. The reality is that every other day has become its own holiday spectacle, so the actual holidays are one of the few chances we have to lay low and relax.

Our wedding is a scant 16 days away. When we set the date for January I was concerned that it would compound all of the craziness of December. Now that we’ve crossed over to a new year I feel exactly the opposite. We’re changing in a time of change. The wedding extends the exfoliation of a prior year, as though our NYE kiss will last from midnight yesterday through when we touch down back in Philadelphia after honeymoon.

My mantra in 2008 was “stuff takes time.” If it sounds unspecific, good – that’s the point. The point that everything in life – my education, my music, my blog, our relationship, our music festival, my career, and our band – has taken a lot of time and effort to get to this point. The point is that no goal worth attaining is instantaneous. I didn’t have a senior position at work and four CDs with my band in 2004, yet here we are. We couldn’t have gotten married in 2004 or rented a farm for our music festival in 2006, but that’s where we’re headed.

It would be pointless to spend the rest of the post back-patting for all of my accomplishments in ’08 – I sortof already do that once a year, anyway.

Let’s not look back. Let’s just devote our time to the people and the things we love, and move inexorably closer to our goals, one year at a time.

How you can take back the holidays while still giving gifts.

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The holiday season is upon us.

In 2005 my mother gave me a tiny rubber chicken, signifying she had donated on my behalf to Heifer International. It was my favorite gift of the year, by far.

In 2006 I bought a water pump for a remote village on the behalf of our four sets of parents, and asked others to make similar donations on my behalf.

In 2007 I gave up material gifts entirely, donating for everyone and doing my best to deflect physical gifts sent my way. It largely worked.

This year I want to redouble my anti-consumerist efforts to make more meaningful donations for more people, and to encourage them to pay it forward to more of their friends and family in the form of donations, or just more thoughtful gifts. There is still a Christmas to be had. And a Hanukkah, a Kwanzaa, and a Festivus. I’m just hoping not to cash in on the consumerism angle of any of it.

I know my approach to holidays is unusual, and I certainly wouldn’t force it on anyone else. However, given the current positive buzz of change in America, the increased interest in “green” initiatives, and the unsteady future of the economy, as my first step in “paying it forward” I’d like to encourage you to take back the holidays from the merciless grasp of consumerism in ways that don’t involve you writing embarrassing holiday limericks or making your own potpourri (unless that’s what you really want to do).

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If you send holiday cards, try one or more of the following…

(1) Purchase cards or envelopes that include post-consumer recycled materials.

(2) Buy plain blank cards and personalize each one with a sketch, a note, a photo, or a shared memory.

(3) Switch from cards in envelopes to postcards, or self-mailing cards.

(4) Make a small donation to a charity on the behalf of all of your card recipients, and mention the donation in your cards.

(5) Replace your physical cards with phone calls, eCards, or messages on your favorite social networking site.

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If you have people you feel compelled to buy a gift for, like members of your extended family or co-workers, try any combination of the following…

(1) Wrap less! Try wrapping your gift in household material, like newspaper or brown bags. Or, consider just putting a bow on it.

(2) Give something consumable or useful. Stay away from fancy toiletries or exotic kitchen aids – focus on the things they would really use. If you’re very close with the recipient, give them a simple physical representation of your relationship, along with a note explaining why you chose it.

(3) Make a donation to a charity local to where they live. Some apolitical, inoffensive charities include toys or coats for kids, or adoption or care for abandoned animals.

(4) Offer to help them perform a daunting task (like doing their taxes or cleaning their garage), or give them them a way to spend extra time with you during the year (like going hiking or seeing a concert).

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Finally, for the people on your list who you just love giving to – like partners, parents, or siblings, try some of these ideas to take the consumer edge off of your giving:

(1) Focus on what they love to do. Why give them a decorative plate when they love to watch movies? Why give them a DVD if they are fly-fishing fanatics? Think about how they enjoy spending their time.

(2) Talk to them to see if they are saving up for something. Surprises are great, but you might find out that they’re just $50 away from buying a new briefcase, guitar, or set of golf clubs. If you help them buy that big ticket item they’ll always remember you helped!

(3) Give them the gift of a new experience they might enjoy. Send a beleaguered mom to the spa, or a shower-singing sister to voice lessons.

(4) Donate to a charity that you both share a passion for. Even better, find out if the charity invites any kind of volunteerism, and include a card with an offer to volunteer together!

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And, for all of those people:

– Consider setting up a post-Christmas gift for them that will brighten their day some other time of the year. If you see a silly knickknack or a second goofy card, hold on to it to send for Spring Equinox, or for Christmas in July!

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That’s the best I’ve been able to brainstorm with a few weeks of thought. Do you have any other less consumerist, more green, reasonably priced holiday solutions? Please share them in the comments – I’ll post an update within the next week with a link to your blog (or, if you prefer, the charity of your choice).

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five years stuck on my eyes

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You don’t date a photographer for nearly five years without picking up something – a certain vernacular – but that something is entirely different when you finally have a camera of your own, and nearly unlimited space to store hundreds of indiscriminately snapped digital shots over the course of a day.

Two days into my spree of snapshots and I can’t decide if digital cameras accelerate a photographer’s novice phase or distend it. Sure, it helps to be able to bracket the same shot at every possible exposure and film speed to see the difference in action. Yet, it’s easy to slip into the habit of continuous clicking – shoot now, sort it out later.

I don’t know why I feel I have to master each little thing I lay my hands upon. Just when I was getting decent at theatre I started playing guitar, and I interrupted that to be the best at blogging, and in the middle at being the best at blogging I decided I needed to make a sporting try at singing. I just can’t pick something up with the goal of being mediocre.

Will I ever be as good a photographer as Elise? Will I ever be as good a songwriter as David Bowie? Both aspirations are irrelevant to the reality – the tools of producing pictures and songs and web essays have been democratized, and each tool is a weapon if you hold it right.

I have a new weapon in my arsenal. While I’m futzing with my Flickr account, here’s my favorites from my first forty-eight hours as a photographer.

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A Consumerless Christmas

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Heather Anne Hogan warms my supposedly scrooge-ish heart by putting the freeze on holiday consumerism through making Christmas charitable.

I love giving gifts, but I’ve never been comfortable receiving them. There isn’t much that i need or want – I work for a living and manage my budget, rewarding myself conservatively but appropriately throughout the year. I don’t like to rely on receiving gifts to fulfill my desires, and anything I don’t already have is probably exorbitant, anyhow. Correspondingly, I don’t like the pressure of seasonal wish fulfillment for the people that are important to me.

This means I’m typically unexcited by Christmas and the rush of holiday shopping that accompanies it. Every conversation from Thanksgiving forward seems to be about exchanging large sums of money for consumer goods, and if you look closely you can see me twitch with every additional shopping destination that’s rattled off. It just makes me uncomfortable.

Instead of just shutting out the materialism of the season (as i am prone to do), Heather Anne Hogan is transforming it. She sent a memo to her entire family that her Christmas giving-and-getting cycle was being devoted entirely to charity.

Her idea really struck a chord with me. A few years ago my boss at the time made a donation in my name as a Christmas present. I hadn’t ever received a donation before, and was honestly flattered and touched by the idea.

Last year my mother and I reciprocated donation-gifts when she bought me a flock of chickens and i bought her education for a year. Except my gift was deployed in Africa, and hers in South America. We bought other things too – gadgets and movies and socks – but the former pair were the gifts i wound up gabbing about all year.

I feel quite merry in announcing that I no longer want to be a consumer for Christmas. I haven’t started shopping yet, and now I think I’ll be making customized donations instead. Since in some cases it’s too late to intercept gifts bought for me, for every pricey gift I receive I’m going to write a thank you card requesting that the giver make a donation in 2007, or write me a check so i can do so on their behalf.

If you happen to be planning on buying me anything more expensive than a card this year, please consider contributing a philanthropic gift instead. You can still tell me all about the cool gift you thought of – maybe we can go shopping for it together!

Cool People Care offers a press release to get you started: “Christmas Is Not Your Birthday” (unless you are Jesus, Jimmy Buffet, or my dad). Afterwards, World Vision offers some great ideas, as does the more recognizable Heifer International, and the more local Donor’s Choose. Also, Water is Basic.