Transcript of Our Live Online Chat with Bill McKibben, Author of Hundred Dollar Holiday
-operator- Welcome to the Center for a New American Dream's first ever live online chat, featuring special guest Bill McKibben, author of Hundred Dollar Holiday.Welcome, Bill.Please feel free to fire away with your questions and comments for Mr. McKibben.
-eb- What do you think is the most important action we all could take this holiday season?
-BMcKibben- I guess the most important thing would be to think about whether or not the things that you're doing are actually making the season joyful for you or not.Keep real careful track and try to figure out if that's what you really want from the Holidays.You can't change your life or your celebrating patterns overnight.But given that the people in this chat will be around for many more Christmases, there's plenty of time to observe yourself and findwhat makes you feel happy and joyful.
-operator- What do you suggest for coping with in-laws who have no interest in reducing material consumption at the holidays?
-BMcKibben- That's a truly difficult question, and there are people who will change at best slowly if at all.Relationships and families are important and not worth destroying on a point of principle.If there's one part of your family for whom all the old rules will apply, so be it.In a general sense, the most subversive thing that one can do is have more fun than other people.And to the extent that your celebrations are more joyful, it may rub off a bit,and others will want to learn from your example.
I loved Hundred Dollar Holiday - now be honest - is it actually possible to keep friends and family members happy for a hundred bucks?
-BMcKibben- Well, I will confess that the title had as much to do with alliteration as anything else.No one should spend all their time counting receipts, it's just a target.But yes, as far as I can tell, all of the people in our family are just as happy with bars of soap, jars of jam, etc.And happiest of all when we've sent small presents to nonprofits and charities in their names.I find very few people in this country who need more stuff.Most of us are looking for more meaning at this time of year.
-operator-Do you have recommendations for inexpensive or homemade gifts?
-BMcKibben- Many, although I would say I've been more impressed with the ideas coming up on the CNAD listserv this month.One that I've heard from a bunch of people that really works is, if you have a teenager, instead of going to the store and buying them jewelry, if you can find a piece of jewelry that you once wore, give it to them with a picture of you then, maybe wearing it, along with a note about that time in your life.Grandparents can find books that they readto their children, and make tapes of themselves reading the books and send them to their grandchildren, so they can be a part of bedtime.
-Ed- Instead of trying to reform the holiday's maybe we need a new one.My immediate family celebrates the Solstice.Our perspective is very different and a tuned to the way the ancients looked at this time of year.The rebirth of the sun and a coming winter where survival until spring was not all that certain.
-BMcKibben- I love the Solstice too.It's useful to know that Christmas takes place when it does not because there's reason to think that Jesus was born then, but because the early Christians were trying to compete with Roman Solstice celebrations.That said, we can probably do both.Some people will want new holidays.Then there are a couple hundred million Americans who identify themselves as Christians and will want to celebrate Christmas.Christmas is a wonderful time to connect with family and community.
What are some of your favorite holiday traditions?
-BMcKibben- Christmas morning, after we open stockings, we take a bunch of birdseed and bread and depending on where we happen to be living, we either go out into the woods or out into the nearest park, and spread seeds for the birds.It's an old tradition of St. Francis' who said that animals too deserve to celebrate this joyful thing, and that the best thing for them to do that was to have a day when they have access to food. It's a wonderful way to remind yourself that this day is about a lot more than you and your desires.
-waco- What is it about the holiday season that brings out the best, and worst, of American culture?
-BMcKibben- Aside from the obvious over-consumerism, the biggest problem in the holiday season is that it illustrates just how time stressed we are, because our lives simply cannot absorb one more set of activities superimposed on already stressful lives.That's why an awful lot of people are extremely thankful when January 3rd rolls around and we're back to the normal insane busyness of our lives. To the extent that it brings out the best in anyone, it's proof of the Holy Spirit at work in difficult circumstances.The reason the holidays are wonderful is because there remains a residual set of traditions from before hyper-consumerism, of being together with friends and family, and doing things like singing carols that connect you with other people.Most of the best traditions of Christmas and the holidays pre-date the current commercial celebrations, and they're among the things that we need to recapture even as we invent new celebrations.
-K- How can we get our children to be satisfied with fewer and less expensive gifts when their friends are getting lots (sometimes expensive) gifts?
-BMcKibben- You can't expect kids to go cold turkey.I have found that kids are somewhat open to the understand that this is somebody else's birthday that we're celebrating.If you can make the holiday joyful enough with enough points of real pleasure, parties, hikes, special activities, spending time together... if you can do enough of those things, then the focus won't be so single-mindedly on how big the pile under the tree is.
-facebill- Is it possible to make a significant impact on holiday consumerism in such rich times?
-BMcKibben- Good question.It's certainly possible to make deep impacts on one's own life, and there's a place to start anyway, so that even if the rest of the world doesn't come along, you will have had the pleasure of a different kind of holiday.But frankly, I think the moment is pretty good for making progress.People are so sated with stuff that they've begun to ask whether they want anymore, or at least they're open to that question. People have so much stuff, they have no more place to put it.Increasingly what we all realize we are lacking is time.Any of the things that allow substituting time for money are deeply attractive at this moment, I think.Needless to say, a long-faced campaign of austerity is unlikely to persuade people at this time.
-waco- How much of the over commercialism of the holidays can we blame on advertisers, and how much of it is the public's fault?
-BMcKibben- Chicken and egg questions are not my specialty.Historically, it took quite an effort to persuade Americans to become big spenders.And Christmas was an important part of that campaign. Americans of the Colonial era were noticeably frugal...it was, among other things, a part of the theology and the culture of earlier Americans.And one of the ways that Americans were convinced to spend a lot of money on themselves was through the spread of a commercial Christmas. The reason to be hopeful that that will happen is that celebrations the way they happen now don't seem to make people particularly joyful, and that's a reason to be optimistic for change.
-rya- If we emphasize less gifts or more special gifts (like one or two things we really want), which I already have done in my recent XMAS gifts as a young adult, how do we keep the economy at its strong point? And further, why should the economy be driven by people buying-buying-buying, often without thought to what they're buying. Could we work on an alternative economy, also possibly challenging those who base our economy on huge consumerism.
-BMcKibben- YES!One of the ironies of this business is listening to people say, Oh but if you changed Christmas it would wreck the economy. The idea that our economic success should depend on the corrupted celebration of the birth of someone who told us to give everything we had should lead us to question the rationality of a hyper-consumer economy.With any luck, these small changes around Christmas will lead people to ask deeper questions about how an economy might be built that would serve basic human needs and not tax our environment.
-plainsmon- What sort of negative responses have you had to practicing the "hundred dollar holiday" and how did you deal with them?
-BMcKibben- Surprisingly few negative responses.In fact, I've spent most of my life working on issues like global warming and have found it extremely hard to get people to stop driving, to drive small cars, etc.I've found an enormous eagerness from people to change holiday celebrations, and a sense of real gratitude towards, say, ministers who talk about this stuff from the pulpit.
-portland- Strange question, but here goes - was there something specific that led you to these ideas, or did they occur over time?
-BMcKibben- Giving people permission to change this fact of our life is usually met with real relief.The few negative reactions have been along the lines of "you're going to wreck the economy."This seems unlikely to me.And I confess that all of my work on things like global warming makes me realize that unless we bring the size of our economies under control, we're going to face extremely large problems.The Christmas campaign that we've been doing is a small step.
We thought we'd wanted less of out of Christmas (less waste, etc.) but in fact we wanted more... wanted it to be a more special time.We had to peel away some of these layers that wrapped the holiday.
-portland- You say that your environmental messages go unheeded, but your quality of life messages are well received. Are we reduced to always appealing to people's selfishness?
-BMcKibben- Well, instead of selfishness, try self-interest-rightly-understood.I have no problem advising people to try to do the things that really make them happy, because I have no doubt that the things that really make us happy--contact with each other, contact with the natural world-- are environmentally benign in the end.It's allowing the consumer culture to define happiness for us that gets us in trouble.
-Jan- A suggested response to those who worry about wrecking the economy - Try spending an equivalent amount on donations to environmental groups, donations to homeless shelters and the like. It seems this would still stimulate the economy without buying so much stuff for one's family and friends!
-BMcKibben- Yes, very good point.In fact, money spent buying vegetables for a soup kitchen is every bit as much a part of the real economy as money spent buying Nintendo, and maybe more so.
-rya- You said you have found it extremely hard for people to stop driving or drive small cars, etc. And I've read your book HOPE,HUMAN AND WILD, which was very good, as well as some of THE END OF NATURE, until it depressed me too much. Well, I'm wondering, do you think that resistance to stop driving or change driving patterns has to do with the fact that eco-cars, as they've been called, are relatively new in the market.
-BMcKibben- Partly, I suppose, it has to do with that, but mostly it has to do with the ways in which driving in our culture has become divorced from real needs.(This is applicable to Christmas too.)In the parking lot of any supermarket, you would see cars, which would help you conclude that America was full of potholes and jungle-swollen rivers.Clearly people buy SUVs for 100 reasons other than need, just as people celebrate Christmas for reasons unconnected either to the theology or the spirit of the season.
-KenfromCh- Mr. McKibben, how do I defend myself against insults incurred as a consequence of my aversion to partaking in gift-giving, not just on the holidays, but birthdays as well?
-BMcKibben- Ken-- Well, people should give gifts in my opinion, to each other and on many occasions, not just on the "approved" ones.The question is, what should those gifts be.If it's a backrub or a trip to the museum, or a loaf of bread, and someone tells you it's not good enough or insults you over it, then no need feel defensive.The problem's not in the gift, it's in the recipient.But gift-giving is one of the great pleasures in the world, both for the giver and the recipient.
-marciarut- Bill, after reading your book, I realized that one of the drivers for Christmas celebration for me was actually a deep urge to experience winter. I spent winters in Alaska as a child and now I live in a temperate climate. There's an elemental call of snow, deep night, and stars that beats in me as we move into the holiday season. Even Solstice celebration is an overlay, a human naming for some of this spirit. Would you please comment?
-BMcKibben- I'm with you.I have a real need to be outdoors a lot at Christmastime, in the cold, especially at night.I think it's no accident that so much of our imagery of Christmas-- the tree, star-- comes straight from the cold, crisp world of the winter Solstice.And I must say there is something so specific about that for me at Christmas that I don't know what Christmas for me would be like at the equator.
-davis- Every year, there's a "hot holiday toy." I'm not being facetious - do you think there's some kind of concerted effort by retailers and media to generate a feeding frenzy around a particular product each year to drive holiday consumerism?
-BMcKibben- Well there's a concerted effort by them to generate a frenzy around dozens of different products, but usually one or two somehow seem to win this battle and become particular objects of lust,but that's what Christmas has become: a concerted effort to generate sales.And you can hear the panic in the business pages beginning already, anytime it appears that Christmas sales may only rise a few percent from the year before.In our increasingly secular society,what seems to matter most are economic indicators.
-Jan- What are some ways to get faith-based groups involved in simplifying the holidays (as well as other environmental issues)? I've been trying to get our church focused on these issues, and people agree that they are important, BUT they never seem to be important enough to do anything about!
-BMcKibben- The secret is to get pastors interested, early in the year. It's too late to preach the first sermon about this on the first Sunday of Advent-- do it on Labor Day.Members of the church can provide support to each other as they go through this exercise.
-K- Bill, are you writing any new books on this or other topics?
-BMcKibben- I have a new book coming out early this winter called "Long Distance: A Year of Living Strenuously" about cross country ski racing and the death of my father.It should be in libraries by early next year.And that was my brief vacation from worrying about huge environmental problems.Now I'm back to that and have spent the summer in Bangladesh looking at how environmental change will affect the poorest parts of the planet.
-BMcKibben- Happy Holidays Everyone!