With only a week left until Christmas, it is such an exciting time for many people, including our family. However I really struggle to accept the unnecessary waste and over consumption that happens during this festive season.
There was once a time when I used to stressfully wander around shopping centres trying to find the perfect present for someone who had everything. That is until I went to Africa, and then my life changed forever. I couldn’t forgot the memories of the severe poverty I had seen and the knowledge that so many children still die from hunger and preventable diseases (one child every 3 seconds)! We live in a society where the more you own, the better off you are but I don’t agree with that. Money doesn’t necessarily bring us happiness and we are made to believe that we need so much more than we really do need. Kids these days want it all, the latest new gadgets and branded new toys, all shiny, plastic, noisy and overstimulating, but there is often little or no thought about how or where these toys are made .
It seems so unfair, so unecessary and although I still really struggle to keep up the Christmas tradition in our family of giving presents, as a family we have sat down and discussed what we want Christmas to mean to us and most importantly to our our daughter Safari.
We believe that Christmas is a time to come together as a community of family and friends and celebrate the love we share for another, but not at the expense of the planet, its people and most importantly our child’s future.
What’s the point of getting a present when a child in a third world country has been forced to work in horrific conditions making it? 
What’s the point of eating a lavish meal when we aren’t supporting our local farmers, instead supporting large supermarket chains that use poisonous chemicals and pesticides to produce their food?
So we decided that we would only buy sustainable, handmade and fair trade gifts to do our bit to make this world a better place.
Last year my wonderful husband built some planter boxes from recycled timber lying around and we planted herbs and veggies and gave one to each family. I hand sewed a doll for my nephew out of his old but favourite pajama’s and I made a picture from natural materials for another friend’s boy for his room.
For gift wrapping we recycled some old cardboard boxes (as you can imagine we have plenty lying around) and my gorgeous girl (yes that’s her!) had an absolute ball painting and decorating them. There was no need to buy cards as we simply just wrote on the boxes.
We also bought a few chickens from the World Vision smiles catalogue and gave them to a some children.
This year we have done the same and only bought gifts that are sustainable and won’t end up in landfills.
We have a beautiful native Australian Christmas tree in our home that we bought last year and have had the pleasure of watching it grow as it has almost doubled in size! We decorated it with lovely handmade wool felt decorations made by women in Nepal and decorated our home with hanging mobiles made from recycled newspaper and natural things we have found on our property. 
Not only has our home come alive with the natural smells and things collected from our land, our daughter has had such a fun time making them with us. Once the tree is too big to stay in a pot we will plant in in our garden to grow and flourish.
We also sponsor a boy from Tanzania through the World Vision sponsor a child program so we know that we are contributing towards helping another family and community become self sufficient and have the opportunity for a better life. We have his picture next to our Christmas tree as a reminder that we can all do something to make this world a better place.
One day when Safari is old enough we will visit him so she can experience their rich culture without all the materialistic needs that our society places so much emphasise on.
So to us Christmas is about sharing and giving from within our hearts and hopefully Safari will learn that Christmas isn’t about how much you spend, it’s about the joy we spread to other people’s lives.
Check out ‘The story of stuff’, a fantastic documentary on consumerism and damage it causes to our planet.
I believe that we all can make a difference and with change comes a more compassionate and caring society and a happier planet for our children. You don’t have to give up the joy of Christmas but your choices can go a long way!
