I'm a skeptic and not a believer, but my heart belongs to Christmas

I'm a sucker for Christmas, a sentimental fool. I love the gaudy lights, the smell of the tree in the house, the music.

Perhaps because so many Newfoundlanders and Labradorians have had to move away for work, the appreciation of friends and family is more profound here than in most places in Canada.

The conviviality that comes with Christmas, the sharing of food and drink and stories, is born of our crowd's desperate want of each another's company.

My paternal grandfather was for many years the Santa Claus at Bowring's. He was an otherwise reserved and contemplative man with an incongruous enthusiasm for Christmas.

Relations speculate this trait may have been overcompensation for a childhood of such abject poverty that there were never celebrations of any kind. Whatever the reason I, a generally skeptical fellow, having lived a life of continuous middle-class comfort, have inherited his seasonal cheer.

The only problem with Christmas is the consumerism. The rush to buy stuff, the frenzied shopping can spoil the holidays.

We consume too much. We spend more than we can afford and in doing so are choking the planet with our waste.

How much of what we buy from underpaid and otherwise abused workers in tyrannical police states and shipped half way around the world is destined for a landfill in less than three years?

This Christmas and those henceforth buy less and buy locally.

It's no wonder that the Marie Kondo decluttering thing, shedding that which did not "spark joy,"was a hit. We've just about buried ourselves in useless crap.

The solution to the problem is simple. This Christmas and those henceforth buy less and buy locally.

Keep what little money you have in your hometown where it has a way of finding its way back into your pocket. Support jobs and skills in your own neighbourhood.

This might have been difficult in years past, but thanks to a thrumming local craft and artisan scene it's easy now. One can buy local knit goods, toiletries, candles, prints and paintings, an enormous range of local food stuffs, recorded music, books written and published right here.

You can gift a dance or yoga lesson, a massage, or a meal in one of many fabulous restaurants. You can give tickets to the theatre.

And getting out to buy it from a local retailer as opposed to the lifelessness of e-commerce puts you in company, you'll meet old friends, make new ones while getting the stink of the house off you. Your A.D.H.D.-inducing, hysteria-accelerating smartphone is essentially a tracking collar for surveillance capitalism, so to really get in the spirit leave the bloody device at home. You'll be looking at faces not screens.

Back in the day I typically left gift buying to the last minute.

I'd get myself to the west end of Water Street, around William L. Chafe, and proceed east picking up what I could from stores along the way. The last stop before Fred's would be the Ship Inn for a restorative pint or two.

It was always so cheery because everyone was there. Some upon successful completion of a shopping expedition, more having abandoned one.

I'm not a believer but am happy to go along for the ride as the Christians celebrate their birthday boy. And while I don't know much scripture I'm confident this Jesus cat wasn't much of a materialist. I think he'd rather you gave love.

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