Giving whimsy

The following is the text of December Deeply Superficial, published in the (sydney) and the (melbourne) magazines:

I loathe Christmas in Australia. There, I’ve said it. The sticks of trees that are supposed to be firs, the pathetic bits of tinsel hung from city lamp posts, the fly-blown hams on the picnic table, the frenetic socialising because – God help us – we’ll never see anyone again come Boxing Day, and the all the whingeing about precisely these things that occupies our conversations from the first reminder, usually in September, that it’s only so-and-so-many sleeps until Santa comes.

When I lived in the northern hemisphere, Christmas seemed to make sense. It may have been just as commercial, but the roasting chestnuts, the real, chunky fir trees, the egg nog, the ice skating, the corpulent Santas on every corner and the splendid street decorations at least lent a whiff of occasion to a festival that seems more and more divorced from its origins.

I only have step foot into my local shopping mall, a hive of stressed-out worker bees armed with shopping lists and credit cards, to sink into a deep depression. The obligation to blow the family’s budget on presents you know the recipient is not going to like – and to spend precious summer weekends doing it when it’s more fun to shop at leisure - takes all the joy out of giving, which I firmly believe should be spontaneous throughout the year. And then there’s the nagging guilt each and everyone of us carries (or should carry) that there are many, many unfortunate people out there that would love those Simpsons shorts that make cousin Bjorn screw up his nose.

I have known parents who make a point of denying little Eustace the iPod Nano and donating the money instead to a worthy cause, but these bold souls are rare and, in this über-materialistic society, considered a bit mean. The kiddies have to have their dozens of presents, don’t they? Tellingly, if you ask social welfare agencies who are the people who give the most at this time, it’s usually people from the lower economic stratas. There’s nothing inherently wrong with gift giving and receiving. In fact, generosity is something to cherish. But if it’s the thought that counts, then gifts bought begrudgingly and received ungratefully are not worth the plastic that they’ve been bought with. Better to purchase a gift for an anonymous deserving stranger and pop it under the Target Christmas tree.

Some of us have too much stuff and others don’t have enough and Christmas might be a chance to redress the balance. It doesn’t mean being a bad capitalist. It certainly wouldn’t hurt the economy if every single person bought an extra gift for an underprivileged stranger. And it need not – probably should not – be something practical. A friend of mine says she worries about donating beauty products like fragrance to homeless women because she knows there is so much more they do need. But I don’t agree. It’s sometimes the whimsical things that people doing it tough miss.

Quietly, the beauty industry is very generous in donating products and funds to charitable organizations, through initiatives such as Look Good Feel Better, a free service which helps women diagnosed with cancer deal with the distressing physical side effects of chemotherapy and radiation by providing products, wigs and makeup workshops. While some might argue that women’s self-esteem shouldn’t depend on makeup – it shouldn’t – you can’t write off the importance of looking and feeling physically attractive in our society. It’s not just the provenance of well-to-do women.

Think of a woman in a refuge who has left her home behind and all of her clothes and her personal items or a woman living in a shelter who needs to be well groomed for a job interview. Would she not love something from Yves Saint Laurent, Chanel or Dior? (Or Origins, Jurlique, Jo Malone…I could go on.) And what she might like best is that another woman chose it for her.

You know what to do. Merry Christmas.