Although I don't do it much any more, I actually love to shop, especially when it's the holiday season downtown: the sparkling sidewalks strewn with snow, the big tree with a random assortment of Santas sitting front, holiday music, the puzzle and calendar shop that sets up outside of Williams-Sonoma, the chill that sets in as we walk from Atticus to Aunties, two of our favorite holiday shopping spots. I love it all. I blame this love of holiday shopping on this song:
But I am on a slow but steady race to become an "ethical shopper." And ethical shopping takes most of the fun out of it because I spend most of my time feeling like I'm not making much a difference, but i can't quite go back. My rules are to: try to buy local made goods; try to not buy from China. There are more rules, like looking for non-plastic, compostable is even better.
All of this kinda takes the joy out of gifting. And I hope someday I can afford to throw caution to the wind and spend the extra cash to buy people awesome local, organic, compstable, star-filled love products for Christmas. But I'm working on my student loans first.
So I'm pretty thrilled that this year, since my side of the family is all going to Hawaii for Christmas, we're forgoing Christmas. It makes everything so much easier!
And after we get back, I'm going to start myself off on a challenge where I don't buy stuff for a couple months. More on that later. In the meantime, in the spirit of wanting stuff, how funny is this shirt. I could wear it to teach!
All of this kinda takes the joy out of gifting. And I hope someday I can afford to throw caution to the wind and spend the extra cash to buy people awesome local, organic, compstable, star-filled love products for Christmas. But I'm working on my student loans first.
So I'm pretty thrilled that this year, since my side of the family is all going to Hawaii for Christmas, we're forgoing Christmas. It makes everything so much easier!
And after we get back, I'm going to start myself off on a challenge where I don't buy stuff for a couple months. More on that later. In the meantime, in the spirit of wanting stuff, how funny is this shirt. I could wear it to teach!
(source)