Winter Solstice: Whatever You Celebrate… Just Celebrate.
Yule, Kwanzaa, Christmas, Hanukkah…whatever it is that you celebrate during this time of year, we recognize the common thread between them: seasonality.
Based on my experience thus far, the holidays (and certainly not Christmas) aren’t widely celebrated in the environmental realm. Working in conservation for almost four years, mentioning the word Christmas in the employee lunch room usually brought a chilling awkward silence. Most of the (white) people I worked with during that time referred to the month of December and holiday seasons of November, December, and January as simply: holiday break. Some of the stewardship staff would even work the days before and after Christmas and New Years. I often just thought of how lonely they must have felt in the office during those days, working alone in complete and utter silence. Some of them were even happy to have that time to finish their “workplans”.
Uh, no thanks.
My first year in conservation, I remember people looking at me like I was crazy when I told them I’d be taking a two week holiday break. Up until that point, my life in for-profit and abundant vacation benefits had allowed me to do such a thing. That first year in non-profit, I pinched and I scrimped my measly little vacation dates I had accrued in my short time at the organization I was at, and ultimately ended up having to agree to take some unpaid days off to make it all work. It didn’t matter, going home for the holidays and spending two glorious weeks in sunny California was not something I was willing to compromise on.
I just remember hearing a lot of “wow, that’s a long break!” when my white co-workers casually asked what my holiday plans were.
I think the holidays make environmentalists feel…uncomfortable. Think about it, we’re all here trying to fight climate change, development, waste, destruction and every other grim aspect of our capitalistic society, and here is this one day a year where it all goes out the window in trash bags, garbage cans, single use items, plastic and paper landfill bound things, tree cutting, dumping, and precious natural resource over-consumption.
I get it. And, now that I understand those people more, and have become a little bit of one myself, I try to take what I learned and apply it to the season. Did I still buy a Christmas tree this year? Absolutely. And did I attend a talk on light pollution destroying the dark night sky during the same week and re-think my holiday lights outside my house? Yes.
What’s the point: you can help work for the environment and still celebrate winter. You can live and eat clean, resourcefully, and ecologically conscious and still go buy a family gift at Target because that’s what’s affordable and that’s what you know your mom truly wanted.
As much as we all want to live in the utopic wonderland Oregon and the Pacific Northwest provides for so many of us (i.e. using fallen Doug Fir tree branches in lieu of a tree that was chopped down and marked with a price tag), we have to see outside of this narrow, narrow view. We have to stop judging our families for participating in holiday capitalism (amazon boxes at the door, anyone?) and instead see the connectors we are all searching for. Cooking food, quality time together, honoring traditions and creating new ones, getting fresh air, encouraging family walks and sharing our own knowledge of the natural world around us with those that don’t know it.
Take a deep breath. Relax. The emails, the zoom calls, budget meetings, and policy convos will be there when you get back.
Happy Winter Solstice.
*Winter Solstice is on December 21st. Unfamiliar? Learn more here.
