Gift Season

It's Xmas time, when suddenly, as good consumers, we're meant to express our love by going out and buying stuff for others.  The list of 'others' is often long, and we often struggle to imagine what they might need or want that we could possibly buy them. We're short of time, and maybe budget, so we end up buying them some object that they might possibly not hate, on a good day. if you squint, in whatever shop we happen to be in when we finally run out of time or patience.

Five years ago, George Monbiot, expressed pretty well that it is essentially The Gift Of Death that we're giving; I suspect he's received one too many talking plastic fish. It's mostly plastic junk that consumes valuable resource in its production, is enjoyed for maybe ten minutes, and then spends ten years in the back of a garage and a thousand years in a landfill.

One of the problems, I realise when someone asks me what I want for my birthday or Xmas, is that our consumer world is filled with abundance.  If I want something, I go out and buy it, frustrating future gift-givers. If I can't afford it, then it's too expensive to put on a gift wish list. Most people I know already have everything they need and want; the only thing they lack is a talking fish...

Since we started this Green thing seriously, almost a year ago, I've come to realise that a huge number of my friends and family have always done the things I now aspire to.

For example, in the case of one of my cheffish friends, when December rolls around, he reserves a weekend or two for baking a huger amount of something simple but delicious, like shortbread, and often 'wraps' it in something nice but also re-usable, like festive tins, and that becomes his Xmas present for every single person he loves (or is otherwise obliged to give to at Xmas time).

He has always done this, for as long as we've been friends (more than three decades). He has never given me a Xmas present I would actually buy; shortbread is delicious, and everything, but not something I've every craved. But his presents are always among the ones I appreciate most, because I know he's spend hours and a lot of thought in their presentation, that he loves doing all the work that goes into it, and they're consistently unique. Not to mention always totally delicious.

So I've always loved these presents, but I'm only now realising that this is something to aspire to - making instead of buying presents. I think it's important to realise that

• the amount of money you spend isn't directly proportional to the amount of love you want to express,
• presents don't have to be specifically chosen for the recipient, but rather
• gifts can express the tastes of the giver rather than the receiver.

Of course, all of this applies to talking fish.

The final key, for me, is that some of the effort and thought of a Xmas present can be spent in achieving a gift that will either be useful for the recipient's entire life, or be immediately eaten.

My hope for this year (although I'm running out of time now) is to manage to make a huge batch of sour dough stollen that I found a recipe for.