Peace on Earth, Good Will toward All.

I went to a great party last night. There was a mountain of delicious delights - piles of shellfish, imported cheeses, meats of every variety, and lots of sugary sweets. The tree was sparkling with decorations and surrounded by a lake of boxes with bows. By now, it has been reduced to a few gifts, and garbage, lots and lots of garbage. Much of it plastic that will last centuries in the landfill. Holy Christmas.

It seems to me the way we show love and caring for each other during this season is largely by exchanging landfill. No, really. Everything wrapped in paper and bows, unrecyclable. One moment a glorious vision of glittering anticipation, and the next a pile of junk, and - best case scenario - the perfect gift. As it's "the thought that counts", we exchange little trinkets, not substantive things, not necessarily useful or wanted or needed, but a token of our affection for another. And the whole kit and kaboodle sooner, or later goes in the trash....or recirculation, for another trash day in the future. And I, too, am glad to be part of the exchange.

How did we get here? Culturally, we have become so detached from ourselves as animals that we show love - sincere and sentimental - completely outside our consciousness to the destruction of our life support system, our fragile ecosystem. Honestly, it's insane, or immoral, or both. The tragedy is the underpinning of this consumer-palooza is something critical to the well-being of the whole - the Christmas Spirit - 'peace on earth, good will towards men'. Celebrating something essential to our survival, in a manner that ensures we do not. I'm thinking we all gotta think about giving our frontal lobes a test drive on this...

But before I go down that rabbit hole any further, I have to say there is some hope. As a result of circumstances out of our control, most of us have less cash to spend this Christmas, and I've noticed a shift. To be fair this shift has been going on for years, but this year it's gained some momentum. This Christmas, for example, there will be no exchanging of gifts in any of our family gatherings, except for children. Although there has been some hard push-back in years past to keep the tradition of gift exchange aloft, this year it's all stopped. It's not hard to see there is so much need in the world, and how lucky we are to have won the 'birth lottery' here in Canada to be in the top five percent of the planet with our standard of living. We have come together this year with food and drink and gratitude to celebrate our good fortune and abundance. We have full bellies and a safe, warm place to gather.

Of course, when the average distance our meals travel is several thousand kilometers, the animals that become our sustenance live in cruel, unnatural confinement their whole short lives, and the people who grow and handle our food typically don't make a living wage, then a typical Christmas minus the gifts seems to fall short.

But alas, I did my best today in my own actions, and to gently influence others. I am only one person, but I know that the worst thing I could do is nothing. So I count my blessings, and feel gratitude for the bounty my loved ones and I have received. And, by the way, I did have a terrific time at the party ;-).