Buy Nothing Christmas

Buy Nothing Christmas

Bible study guide for high school youth

by Erin Morash

Associate Pastor, North Kildonan Mennonite Church

Winnipeg, Canada

Introduction

This Bible study guide is intended to invite young people into reflection and conversation about the meaning of Christmas and the consumerism that North American society associates with it. The hope is that young people will understand that Christmas is about Christ and not about shopping and that they will commit themselves to a celebration of Christmas which reflects this. This study guide is inspired by the Buy Nothing Christmas movement (www.buynothingchristmas.org).

This guide may be used at any time of the year. (One group used it in summer and called it “Christmas in July.”) We advise you not to wait until the Advent season, as by that time many decisions about Christmas shopping and gift-giving will have already been made.

The three sessions were written with a church youth group in mind. They may be used in a Sunday morning education hour, an informal Friday evening gathering or some other context. Each session includes a scripture text, a written reflection, several discussion questions and some action suggestions called "changing tracks."

We suggest that you, the leader, invite one or more youth to read through the scripture text. Without discussion or comment, turn to the reflection and read—or, preferably, tell—it. If you choose to read the reflection, you may wish to invite some of the youth to read a paragraph or two. Invite responses of any kind. Allow the discussion to follow the interests of the group. Towards the end of your allotted time, invite the youth to consider taking on the action suggestions. Conclude your time by reading a portion of the scripture again and closing with prayer.

If you focus on the Buy Nothing Christmas theme for more than one gathering, make sure that you begin subsequent sessions by asking the youth whether they did any of the action suggestions and what the experience was like. Allow for the expression of feelings of frustration, anger or hurt that may have surfaced—some people may think they are crazy! If you sense the group is open to it, invite the members to consider doing a group action as suggested on the “additional activities” list at the back. Encourage one or more members of your group to send a message to the Buy Nothing Christmas website, indicating what you have done.

Session 1: Challenging conformity

Luke 1:26-38; 46-55

Reflection: the challenge

It often seems that most images of teenagers going against culture, against conformity, and against the way the world thinks things should be run, seem to be negative. We keep getting these news stories about teenage killers, about violent rebels, about hackers who send out viruses. Maybe that’s why I like the Christmas story so much: a teenage girl accepts a challenge to go against the grain, despite the risks, and do something powerful and positive.

I mean, think about this young woman (we don’t know how old she is, somewhere between fourteen and eighteen seems likely): She’s engaged, but not married, and she’s from a poor rural family (going into debt to give each other gifts would not have been on their ‘to do’ list). She picks up the challenge this angel messenger from God tosses her and accepts the pregnancy. She will give birth to a child who will eventually turn the entire status quo of the ‘way things are done’ on its head. It’s pretty clear from the story, that she understands that the reason this is happening is to shake things up, rattle the culture. She believes that this child’s destiny is about a complete power reversal: the rich and powerful go away empty and the poor and stomped on will finally be heard, honoured, and fed. Mary’s words are a song and a manifesto. After all, she’s the poster child for reasons why someone couldn’t make a difference: she’s a girl, unmarried, from an enslaved people, living in a tiny rural town in an occupied country.

So looking at Christmas, we celebrate Mary’s courage and her willingness to be part of change, by buying hundreds (or thousands) of dollars worth of gifts. Most of those gifts will, likely, have been made in factories that employ . . . guess what? Teenage girls in, say, Mexico, Burma or Vietnam, who work fifty to sixty hour weeks for $25 to $50 US. When they finish work at the end of the day, they likely go home to sleep in their family’s dirt floored shack, with no running water or electricity. If they’ve moved to the city to work, they might live in an overcrowded dormitory with hundreds of other girls and they’re charged for their bed in the dormitory. Some of these young women speak up. With incredible courage they take the risk of telling about the conditions in clothing and toy factories where they work in 30° C heat and 100 percent humidity for sixteen hours a day, so that we can buy another sweater for our sibling or our best friend for Christmas. They risk being beaten, fired, or even killed for speaking out on these abuses. Mary would have understood them.

Someone once said that the greatest shortage in our society was a shortage of courage and creative imagination. We tend to think inside the same worn out tracks. We go along with the lights, the exhausting spending spree, the debt, the frantic parties, because we can’t think of anything better to replace them with. We also don’t want to make our relatives mad, and the gifts are pretty nice, even if we’ve already run out of closet space a long, long time ago. Then there’s the courage thing: When we do toy with the idea of doing something different, we back out of actually carrying it through.

It’s become pretty standard for businesses, advertisers, and even schools to drop the name ‘Christmas’ for this holiday and simply call the whole thing ‘the Holidays.’ It says something about what we see as the point of the whole celebration. I know, I know, it seems like another church protest thing, ‘taking the Christ out of Christmas,’ but the essential story behind the ‘Christ-Mass’ celebration is an interesting one that basically challenges every single thing we currently do to celebrate it.

What do you think?

1. Can you imagine yourself in Mary’s difficult position? Or can you imagine yourself in a modern day parallel like the teenage factory worker? Why would God choose you? What would be your response to the angel?

2. Have you ever rebelled or spoken out against a great injustice that you witnessed? What helped you to do this? How did others respond?

3. What does the reflection say to you about your celebration of Christmas? about the message that you would like Christmas to carry?

Changing tracks

1. Baby step version #1. Try keeping a two-week diary of every single cent you spend during two weeks in December. Ask yourself what else you can do with this kind of money. Tax yourself on the money you’ve spent. Donate 1 hour of work to charity for every $20 you spend.

2. Baby step version #2. Choose one friend/family member with whom you always do the gift giving thing. Ask them if you can give each other the gift of time together, rather than having to shop for each other.

3. Extreme or cold turkey version #1. Tell your family you would prefer not to exchange presents this Christmas, or that you would prefer to share home-made or alternative gifts (check out the suggestions at http://buynothingchristmas.org/alternatives/index/html). They may be impressed. They may think you’re crazy. Talk with them about the reasons why you want to go counter cultural. (Check out the list below). Ask them why they think they have to conform.

4. Be a rebel at work and tell them that you’re willing to donate a little cash to a charity, but you’re not going to do the gift exchange thing at work. Tell them you’re rebelling against culture (this is especially challenging if your after school job is in retail!).

What to say about why you are celebrating a Buy Nothing Christmas

(These are some suggestions)

• I believe that Christmas is about the birth of Christ and not about shopping.

• I—and most other people I know—already have far too much stuff; I don't need more.

• The corporations and advertisers try hard to keep me unsatisfied with myself and my life; I want to resist this.

• I would like to use my Christmas spending money to help people living in poverty.

• I would like to spend special times with the people I care about, rather than spend many hours at the mall looking for gifts.

• I believe this is a way that I can make my faith real.

Session 2: Turning it upside-down

Matthew 2:1-18; Amos 8:4-6

Reflection: feast and fast

This is a seriously disturbing story. The ruler of a country is so paranoid that he feels threatened by the birth of a baby—a baby who might shake up the ‘powers that be’ in his adulthood. So the ruler has his soldiers sent out to kill every child born in a specific area who happens to be in the right age range. Problem solved. It says something about what power does to the human soul. It also helps to clarify why early church leaders decided to pick December to celebrate Christmas.

Late December is the time of the winter solstice. In the northern half of the globe, the shortest day of the year is on or around December 21. In the middle of a cold dark winter, people of the ancient world needed to celebrate the fact that after December 21 the days started getting longer, with light and warmth on their way. The images of light being reborn into a world that was struggling with the darkness of winter was too much for the early church to resist. It fit perfectly into those images of Jesus as 'the light of the world.'

In most of the Roman world, the solstice party was called Saturnalia. It celebrated the return of the sun, the end of winter and also remembered a ‘golden age’ when there was no death, misery, or slavery. In memory of this ‘golden age,’ slaves and masters traded places for one day. Peasants could mock their rulers and a peasant might be crowned ‘king for a day.’ Feasting and drinking were all part of the party.

The role reversal theme fit in beautifully with the teachings of Christ and the Christian ideals of all being equal before God, of the poor being blessed and the powerful (like Herod) being humbled. In about the fourth century, the Christ-Mass or celebration of the birth of Jesus was permanently attached to the traditional date for the Saturnalia feast, December 25.

The traditional partying and role reversal celebrations stuck with Christmas for centuries. In the Middle Ages, peasants were holding feasts and trading places with their Lords and Ladies for a day. The peasants got to shake up the status-quo for one day and challenge their rulers with the part of the Christian message that declared, 'Blessed are the poor, for they shall inherit the earth.' King Herod in Matthew’s story would not have been impressed.

Strangely enough, as time and society ‘progressed,’ this idea of Christmas as a celebration that challenged power and social roles became distasteful and threatening. The Puritans in England disliked the rowdy nature of the festival and the way that it encouraged lowly commoners to ignore the barriers of privilege, power, and law, even if only for a day.

In the nineteenth century, there was a strong movement to turn the 'rowdy, public, subversive celebration into a family affair with a focus on gift giving and, of course gift buying.' That this movement was encouraged by the middle class merchants comes as no surprise.

So Christmas changed from being a celebration of the triumph of light over darkness, good over evil, a reversal of social order, and a rowdy party that made fun of those who think they will always be in charge, and it became a private family ritual where people give gifts to those they like. Now, in addition to our tendency to over-eat and over-drink, we over-spend. And we’ve forgotten the whole reversal of power ideal. In fact, the message of Christmas has seemingly become ‘eat, indulge, buy ‘til you die, go deep into debt, and give your spare change to the soup kitchen if you remember.’ The tough message of ‘good news to the poor, freedom to the enslaved’ has faded away. Santa Claus with his big red bag has become the Savior at Christmas and we are saved, approved of, and welcomed as long as we spend and give, spend and give . . .

A celebration that seems to be all about buying love and buying God’s approval—now that’s a party King Herod would have enjoyed!

Thinking about it

1. What is the best Christmas celebration that you can remember? What made it special?

2. Do you know a story about Christmas that represents a reversal of power?

Share it with your group.

Changing tracks

December fast

This is an Advent calendar that has a bite to it. On each day of December leading up to Christmas, count the appropriate privilege/blessing and pay the fine. Send the money to a group that fights poverty.

1. .10 ¢ for every hot water tap in your house

2. .75 ¢ for every vehicle your family owns

3. .05 ¢ for every pair of jeans you own

4. .25 ¢ if your family subscribes to the newspaper

5. .05 ¢ for every bed in your house

6. .03 ¢ for every /beauty makeup item you own

7. .03 ¢ for every pair of footwear

8. .03 ¢ for every light switch in your house

9. .20 ¢ for every tub/shower

10. .10 ¢ for every flush toilet

11. .02 ¢ for every bar/dispenser of soap

12. .15 ¢ if you have dishes to eat off of

13. .15 ¢ if you have cooking pots in your cupboards

14. .05 ¢ for every window in your house

15. .10 ¢ for every outside door

16. .20 ¢ for every television in your house