Advent Conspiracy

Another thing I heard about at Fusion is Advent Conspiracy. Lots of people talk about how commercial Christmas has gotten but don’t really do anything about it. Advent Conspiracy and other people/organizations are trying to change that.

One research group found that the average shopper spent over $800 last year on Christmas gifts. If 200 million Americans spend $800 on Christmas, that’s $160 BILLION dollars. We run around all over shopping and trying to decide what to get everyone. In some cases we actually go into debt just to buy presents. Compare the hours and time invested in choosing, buying, exchanging, and using gifts to the time we spend on the “official” point of Christmas, which is celebrating the birth of Jesus. I’ll bet that ratio isn’t very pretty. It certainly isn’t for us. Is this how we think Jesus wants us to celebrate his birthday?

Now don’t get me wrong – I enjoy getting Christmas gifts and greatly appreciate the generosity, thought, and time that people invest in giving them to me. I just think that our incredible wealth and consumption mentality here in America have warped Christmas in our culture, replacing Jesus with “stuff”. Meanwhile, in many other countries around the world, people perform backbreaking labor for as little as a dollar a day, and the only available water is filled with parasites. Even here in America, millions of people are struggling to survive.

The idea behind the Advent Conspiracy movement is simple:

1. Spend less on Christmas by buying fewer and less expensive presents, making your own gifts, or simply spending time with those you love
2. Give the money you save to someone who needs it more
3. Devote the Christmas season to celebrating the birth of Jesus, through any number of ways your family might choose

RethinkingChristmas.com has some wonderful ideas for homemade gifts and Christmas activities that a family can do together that will be just as fun, probably more memorable, and definitely more beneficial to those in need. Another site lists a variety of related resources about alternative gifts/activities and good places to donate your savings.

Looking back on 30 Christmases, I think most of the best parts were not the fun gifts that I got but the memories I gained: roasting marshmallows by the fire, the incredible Christmas feasts we always enjoyed, playing Taboo with the family, catching up with the cousins, singing Silent Night en masse at the candlelight Christmas Eve service, and simply spending time with people I loved.

We’ve already bought most of our Christmas presents for this year. Happy to give them, we hope their recipients will enjoy them. But for next year, we would love to take the Advent Conspiracy approach. We’re already thinking about low-cost, high-creativity gifts and activities we could do with our loved ones.

What do you think, loyal readers? Am I crazy? I mean, in a bad way? Is this just too revolutionary? Or can we actually do this?

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