Present Dreaming: Why I Hate Christmas, And Love Beryl the Orangutan

in #environment5 years ago (edited)

I'm a Christmas Grinch, right up until the Christmas Eve where I crank 'A Swinging Christmas', which has a fabulous sexy title but is just Frank Sinatra and crooning seasonal tunes, and panic about the meal I'm meant to make for our night before the 25th family dinner, find a pretty frock and race up the local supermarket for a bottle of prosecco to share with my Mum, Aunt and sister, who will likely drink too much of it.


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What have orangutans got to do with Christmas?

Why I Hate Christmas - Mostly

One of the reasons I loathe Christmas is because of the dreadful gluttony, overspending and waste. I can hear the planet groan like a grandfather sliding back into his chair and loosening his belt after far too much rum soaked, ice cream laden pudding.

In 2016, Australians forked out $48.1 billion at Christmas time. Billions on ham and chickens and turkeys. Billions on prawns and oysters. Billions on fruit mince pies and cherries and mangoes and eggs for Christmas pavlova. Billions on tin foil and tinsel and christmas crackers and fairy lights. And it's not only that - some 700 million is spend on presents we often don't want to buy and don't want to recieve. I elect out of the Kris Kringle at work at the risk of seeming unsociable because I don't want a crappy present I don't want wrapped in paper and plastic I don't want.

I'm thankful for my family who has reduced it to one thoughtful gift per person. Names are drawn out of a hat, and we buy for the name we get. We usually buy each other a plant - thank goodness we all like gardening.

A Christmas Orangutan

This week, I'm thankful for the orangutan that comes through the post. Her name is Beryl. Beryl is 7 years old was rescued as a tiny infant by the Sepilok Rehabilitation Centre in Borneo, run by the Orangutan Appeal UK. My mother in law adopted her for us, and has paid this adoption fee every year for our Christmas present for some ten years now. When Beryl is released into the wild, we'll get a new orangutan - the first was Naru.

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It's our appetite for destruction in the name of mass consumerism that's caused orangutans like Beryl to be almost extinct in the wild. Currently, the Bornean orangutan is listed as Endangered and the Sumatran orangutan as Critically Endangered. Intense logging (both legal and illegal) and the conversion of forests to palm oil, large scale fires due to El Nino and the illegal animal trade as well as being hunted and eaten as a bushmeat threaten these beautiful creatures. Once in the hundreds of thousands, it's now thought that both species will be extinct in the wild in the next ten years.

Appeals like the Orangutan appeal (and there are many others) are perfect gifts - I appreciate this one more than any other because I know it's doing good somewhere in the world and it's not shoved at the back of the cupboard and forgotten about. Beryl is magnetised to our fridge and makes me smile every time.

Do you consider the ingredients in the packaged food you buy at Christmas?

It's not just immediate waste and spending habits that is the problem, but the effects that our consumer habits have on wild populations. Palm oil (used for food and cosmetics, as well as a feedstock for biofuel) is horrifically destructive. The largest driver of Indonesian deforestation (and thus drives orangutans out of their habitats) it is one of the biggest contributors to climate change. Wastewater at palm oil refineries release immense amounts of methane into the atmosphere.

Palm oil is in roughly 50 percent of products on our supermarket shelves, and I wonder how many of you read through the ingredients and put them back on the shelf if it's got palm oil in it, even though you desperately want that Christmas treat.

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Despite pleas for labelling, it's not mandated - soybean and a few other oils are because they could cause allergies, but not palm oil. It's heartening to see many companies have made the switch to 'sustainable' palm oil but that's not without it's issues either. You can find out which products use sustainable palm oil from a simple app that you can download onto your phone - check it out here. Yet boycotting palm oil isn't the only solution - choosing one with another oil can have just as devastating an impact. One of the reasons palm oil is such a good alternative is that you get far more oil per hectare than, say, coconut oil. Algae oils have been floated as a good and health alternative, not requiring forest land at all, yet that isn't a perfect solution either - cost, water availability, growing, collecting, drying and light and so on all have added up to a bit of a failure on that front and algae simply can't compete with other oils on the market.

So What do we do?

We do what we should always do with everything we do - we weigh up the costs (not just financial, but the toll on the planet) against our desires. Most times what we want can simply not add up to the horrific destruction on the planet.

If it means foregoing Christmas, then so be it. But I'm sure we're far more imaginative that that, and can work out a way to have a brilliant Christmas day without the wilful blindness, gluttony and outright disregard for how our actions might impact the world around us.

UNLESS someone like you

cares a whole awful lot,

nothing is going to get better.

It's not.

- The Lorax, Dr Suess



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I told the fam I want seeds and gift cards to buy trees :)

Consumerism is a hard cycle to break. We still buy plenty of packaged foods here. Lots of money gets spent on cardboard and plastic that go to the landfill. But we're making progress. Every week, more gets saved and repurposed or composted. Soon we'll start using a composting urinal (for me and the boys, cause boys love peeing on leaves). Remember, Nate's not a hippie. I'm just a normal dude that's tired of so many external inputs and outputs.

This homestead thing is like a snowball. Eventually, we won't be needing to buy packaged greens that come in a plastic bag. Or gmo corn that comes in a can. Or eggs with a styrofoam package.

I commiserate with your feelings about Christmas. Consumerism tries so very hard to ruin it in the name of excessive profits.

Dear Hippie In Texas

I Have just started going to whole foods as one opened up in town. I can bring my own jars. So much less waste. So feels good. Waste is not good, hippie or not.

Love Hippie in Antipodies.

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Dear antipodal hippie

I have too many guns to be a hippie. I keep saying we'll go to our local market, but I keep not going. Waste sucks. Partially because I'm lazy and hate rolling out the trash. But waste also is a justification for the state, who props up big pharma and big ag and the military industrial complex, all of which destroy the earth. Waste pisses me off. I need to go to the local market to help with my self loathing and inconsistency.

Love, Texan anarchist.

Can we be anarchic hippies with guns? Yes we can! Xx I'm with you 100 percent xxx

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Totally down for anarchist hippies with guns! 😂 Sounds pretty much heavenly.

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Thank you!! Soooo good!! This post and I love your anti-gift.... this year we aren’t buying each other gifts but just cooking and spending quality time— with my parents and sis and her fam. Happy about that and I think it’s a step in the right direction during this gluttonous holiday ❤️

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Yes that's a good idea. Either that or homemade definitely is the way to go. It's definitely the thought not how much money you spend comma and it is far more about family than anything else. Xx thanks for your lovely comment.

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I agree about Christmas - I love the get-togethers and joyfulness, but I just hate the corporateness and the stressed buying frenzy that takes over many people. I like pressies, but they should be meaningful presents for each other, not to fatten corporate coffers. What could be nicer than a Christmas orang-utan?

Exactly! A Chrissy orangutan is AWESOME!

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A Christmas orangutan ...that is just the best thing ever!! Oh my gosh, that is just so lovely and fitting and also so sad that it needs to be done in the first place.

I thank you for this, I share a lot of the same sentiments and really think it is such an important thing for people to "vote carefully with their wallets". The choices we make really do have such a big impact on this world.

We enjoy the holiday season, Christmas movies and old crooners on the radio, but it sure looks a lot different than most peoples version. My husband and I don't exchange gifts - we are each others gift!! :) a lot of the time the gifts we give to others are either hand made locally or by us. I loathe buying gifts from the shops and just can't do it. Everyone seems to be happy with what they get so I think it works out.

The thing that assures me we've got it right is that everyone is happy, relaxed and stress free at our house. It's about the connections and the time together and the good home grown eats!

As I get older all of the holidays have lost the lustre and I find the greed/consumerism side of it to be quite revolting. I just can't stomach the fact that so many people in retail have to work on the holidays or that shops are open at all during them, because there is so much greed in the world.

My husband and I don't exchange gifts - we are each others gift!! :)

And i thought I was romantic!!! Love it.

You are I are definitely on the same page here. And yes, our Christmas is relaxed too and lovely. That's why I like the day, but avoid shops like anything!!!!

Christmas is what you make of it....

Oh it's okay... YOU can love it and I LOVE that you love it.. don't be annoyed my CHRISTMAS FAIRY friend!!!

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Not annoyed, just what I think. Much the same as life... it is what you make of it...

I never thought of myself as a Christmas fairy, but the idea is appealing :))

Great post I agree very much. Consumerism is a vicious cycle that we are trying to break within our families. We’ve stopped giving gifts to most people and instead give out things that we can do together like a music show, event or something where we enjoy each other’s company but don’t spend money on useless junk that ends up in a landfill.

Interesting that you quote the Lorax! I knew that book by heart from reading it to my children so many times, and here is the present my adult daughter gave to her adult brother last year for Christmas, made from wool she had carded, felted and dyed (natural dyes of course) herself!
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I don't know why that image takes you away from steemit, so here it is again. IMG_20180124_152202.jpg

Aw wow, that's the cutest!!!!!!!

I love this soooooo much! Everything you say is spot on, in fact, I just had this conversation with my sister the other day. IMO Christmas is way too commercialized, and the actual meaning has been lost to glitz, glamour and keeping up with the Joneses. We respect and celebrate Christmas but we do so in the sharing of togetherness; any gifts we give are token only and somethin useable, usually food, lol.

What a beautiful gift of an orangutan; and it would be just as sweet if it were any other creature, there are so many near extinction because of humans.

Yes, I do read all my labels and refuse to buy anything with palm oil if I am aware it is in the product. (I laugh at “vegans” who eat Oreos... I am vegan, btw).

If each person could just make one small change in their lives to better our world, it would make a huge difference. And that one step in the right direction can change your own attitude, giving a sense of euphoria, making you want to do it again and again.

Thank you for such a heartfelt post.

Thank you for your lovely comment. It is really appreciated. Yes it is one thing to be vegan and another thing to be completely ethical. You can't be vegan because you love animals and then turn around and eat products that , whilst they may not have animal products in them ,have an influence on the animal kingdom and the very Earth itself. It actually makes things a little bit harder , but once you set the habit of being aware it becomes quite easy

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As they say, nothing worthwhile ever came easy... it takes but a few minutes to read a lablel, once you know what you are looking for, it is simple.... the hard part comes in finding an alternative or doing without.

I have yet to make my own vegan butter, but refuse to buy vegan margarine because of the palm oil, so peanut butter on dry toast is what I eat, or a little bit of coconut oil... we just have to retrain the brain, and our taste buds, to think differently.

Thanks for your response.

It's the present giving that put me off Christmas. I always loved the sentiment that you make that bit of sacrifice to give someone something special for Christmas that they might not have been able to have otherwise, but what do you get someone who already has everything they want and can afford more than you can give them anyway? I also don't want useless items, myself, that will go to a charity shop or in the bin after Christmas.

My family aren't too bad with the idea of sustainable type of gifts, but hubby's family seem to compete and then sneer at gifts that haven't had as much spent on them. My sister-in-law's kid had more toys than my daughters put together when we last visited her. She has a second child now and just bought an even bigger house. The eldest had about £1000 ($2000) spent on him for his 11th birthday. The only thing I can think of to get her kids that they don't already have or get is TimTams! Then I hear that the eldest had a letter sent home from school about health concerns because he's obese and wonder if I shouldn't really be contributing to that...

Yup, I'm with you on Christmas.

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Gosh! You can't win!!! 1000 quid - are they rich or in debt??? Far out. You're just raising trouble doing that! Seems like a recipe for unhappiness.

Most of us have what we want, that's why a book or a plant is a really good gift for any of us, and sometimes a meal voucher for a nice restaurant is awesome too as how often do we treat ourselves to a nice meal out? We've been enjoying that gift of late, the whole family appreciates it!

A meal voucher sounds great. I wonder if you can order that online. Could be a good one for the UK rellies.

They spend as quick as it comes in. They buy on credit, then when its paid off they get some more debt to pay off.

Oh gosh that's awful. I absolutely DO think you could order online!!!!! where in the UK are they?

East Midlands. I'll have to look into it.

And where do you live?

(came back to edit - in south australia, have I asked you that before? Du'oh. Sorry! Just went and checked your profile. So many people here I can't keep up! xx Hot there today? It's soooo hot here!)

Currently getting the same weather as yourselves, I believe. Just checked BOM and they've upped their estimate to a top of 40 for today.

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