Secondhand Santa is coming to town 🎅🎶
How I make my daughter's love of Christmas align with my Grinch-like hatred of 'seasonal decor'
Like many kids, our daughter loves all things Christmas. The tree, cookies, candy, lights, candles, associated scents, snowflake window decals, music, the movie Elf…you name it, she’s into it. This year she’s even taken the extra step of decorating her room (and her iPad home screen).
As a lazy, non-religious woman who is somewhat eco-minded (but far from a perfect environmentalist), I have always struggled with how to balance the sparkly seasonal hoopla she adores with the reality that everything we bring into our home comes at a cost, holiday decor included.
This emotional ambivalence of mine was well underway when the post Beyond Black Friday by
arrived in my inbox last week. As she writes:“Sadly, many ritual and ceremonial days have been co-opted and are now commercial observances that stress life on an incredibly stressed planet. The focus on materialism often overshadows the true meaning of ritual.”
She suggests turning Black Friday into “Buy Nothing Day,” or taking time to honor “Remembrance Day for Lost Species,” which is tomorrow.
Both are great ideas. I’d like to suggest a third—what I call Secondhand Santa. This tradition began Christmas 2020, when we couldn’t fly to Minnesota to visit my husband’s side of the family due to covid.
Up until then, we had relied on them for providing our kiddo with all things Xmas. Our trips up north were a great way for me to avoid the dreaded female expectation of “seasonal decorating” without depriving my child of the cherished holiday memories she craved.
Given how bleak things were in 2020—she stayed home from school and camp most of that year—it seemed important to pull off our version of Christmas. We started with the obvious investment: We bought a tree. But then we realized we had nothing to put on it.
Doh.
Predictably, the tree’s spartan appearance was atrocious to our child, who balked at my idea to string it with some popcorn and cut-out snowflakes, you know, like the good ole days.
She demanded we do better, meaning, buy a ton of stuff all at once to make the tree—and our house—as festive as Rockefeller Center, pandemic be damned. As we stared at the naked tree, an idea just sort of floated into my head.
“Let’s go to Goodwill! We can get whatever you want, OK?”
“DEAL!” she answered.
At the store (in her sad little face mask, of course), she raced down the aisles Supermarket Sweep style and filled our cart with packages of overstocked ornaments, used-but-like-new stockings, window clings (that later kept her busy for at least thirty minutes!), a somewhat-askew wreath, and so much more.
Once we got home and decorated, it actually looked pretty great! (Full disclosure: We also let her buy some unicorn-themed ornament kits from a local craft store, which was another great way to keep her busy.)
A week ago, I got the question I’ve been getting every November since 2020, a question that makes me feel like I’m doing something right as a parent, imparting a useful lesson that not everything nice needs to be new.
“Mom, can we go to Goodwill?”
Make a ‘living’ succulent wreath that will live on in your house
Another lovely idea: Make a succulent wreath! I took a workshop at Articulture Designs here in Austin last year, creating this:
I replanted the little babies and now have these all around my bedroom:
It was surprisingly therapeutic to put the wreath together, which is a nice balm during what is always a chaotic time of year. Turns out being a “plant lady” is a scientifically proven way to reduce stress.
“The idea is rooted in a psychological theory called ‘biophilia,’ which suggests that humans are genetically and instinctively connected to the natural world and plants,” explains Cory Stieg in a Refinery 29 article.
I dunno, but this perhaps also explains why we like to drag trees into our homes this time of year?
An excellent idea. I'd never heard of this or thought about it.