Bill McKibben Hates Christmas (and apparently you do too)

At least that's what I glean from this piece from Grist. Here's some choice quotes:

"If stuff isn't valuable anymore, what is? Time, clearly. A gift of time -- a coupon for a back rub, or a trip to the museum, or a dinner prepared someday in the future -- is a gift whose exchange rate is figured in a stronger currency (if you're an economics major, think euros vs. dollars). Or gifts can come embedded with time already spent: a jar of homemade jam, a stack of firewood in the back yard.

"...Gifts can also be reconfigured to remove some of the hyperindividualism that marks our consumer society. Ask yourself what you'd rather receive: another thing, or a homemade card saying that, say, a cow had been purchased in your name and was now providing milk for a Tanzanian family that hadn't had milk before."

I think part of the problem with the anti-consumerist movement is the assumption that everyone else thinks the same way-- that surely no one is happier with more stuff! Personally, I'm not so sure. I hate the band Everclear, but I do love the line from the "I Will Buy You A New Life": "I hate those people who love to tell you/Money is the root of all that kills/They have never been poor/They have never had the joy of a welfare Christmas."

Report: Nation's Wealthy Cruelly Deprived Of True Meaning Of Christmas