Scrooging – the How-to Guide to Merry Gift-giving

Scrooge must have been pretty smug, sitting by a fire with a nip of brandy while shoppers bustled their way through blizzards to buy the most wanted in Dickensian gifts, such as horsehair hairbrushes and tortoiseshell soup tureens. Festering in a drunken grumble, he would have then toddled off to bed alone, woken up alone, and had another nip of brandy —for breakfast—alone. Thankfully the activity of gift-giving is possible whereby you keep your friends, your sanity and ease the burden on the environment.

Gift-giving—whether it be Christmas or birthdays—is a perfunctory gesture of modern times as expected by all, as much as tax cut promises in election campaigns; the more you give, the more popular you are. But as anyone knows, shopping for gifts involves overheating the radiator while cruising for a parking spot, then traipsing around endless aisles with sweaty swollen feet. The whole thing rarely has the glow of goodness ascribed to cherub-cheeked Santa Claus. The elves do all the work and Santa rocks up to a house, gulps down some milk and cookies then pats the cat and ho ho hos on his merry way. Easy! But us mere mortals are faced with the dilemmas of gift-giving: unwanted presents, piles of packaging and exploitation of resources to provide the latest in gadgetty gimmicks.

In 2005, Australians received over $700 million of unwanted Christmas presents (ref 1) and in the UK in 2004, an estimated 1.6 billion pounds worth (ref 2). This fiscal waste is also manifest in bulging cupboards and bursting drawers full of dowdy underwear and nanna doilies. We keep things out of obligation or laziness—some more enterprising folk may jump onto eBay and make the most of a hydrosonic cleaner to fund the latest edition of Halo. Polling by ICM Research for eBay revealed that 65% of adults would consider passing on unwanted gifts (ref 2). So why give presents if no one wants or needs them? Physical entities take up much valued space, even in wheelie bins— full as a beltful of Christmas lunch with bubble wrap, boxes of plastic to wrap plastic to wrap paper wrapped in paper.

The packaging associated with gifts, such as plastics and paper, accounts for 10% of domestic waste (ref 3). This may not sound like much, but consider the fact that each on average each year, each Australian household produces 400 kilograms of waste and an average person buys about 1500 packaged items (ref 4). Saying ‘oh it’ll just be recycled’ is false—only 20% of domestic waste is recyclable (ref 4). Even the raw materials to make ‘stuff’ is wasteful considering the absolute need for hot dog steamers and egg cookers is about as necessary as a fly swatter in an igloo. Anyone ever heard of a saucepan and water?

The glow of giving seems to be tarnished by the stress of shopping, unworthy recipients and on the acres of land needed to cram that foil wrapping paper away post-Noel. Is it possible to ‘do the right thing’ by your sanity, your friendships and the environment?

Ho ho ho it is possible—the term is ‘scrooging’. A scrooge-gift is an experience— nothing physically to hold, break, stow or lose, but a service performed, a memory to cherish, or a feeling of making a difference. By gifting an experience to someone, you get to shop online, the person gets something they are more likely to enjoy, and there is minimal packaging waste.

Just imagine sitting at your computer with a nice cold drink while you click your way through Christmas shopping online—no more cheesy Christmas carols muzak while waiting at the checkout. There’s even Santa /aka Australia Post to deliver it all for you. The wheelie bin will have room to fit New Years Eve champagne bottles because the only packaging is a few envelopes and an empty jar of cranberry sauce. The scrooging method of shopping is easy, personalised and green—just match the person to the scrooge-gift.

Possible scroogey presents:

***Arty types
Movie vouchers, season tickets to opera/theatre/ballet, concert, magazine subscriptions, website subscription, Itunes music voucher
---http://www.greaterunion.com.au/giftcards/index.asp
---http://www.opera-australia.org.au

***Motoring Enthusiasts
Petrol vouchers, car wash vouchers, supercar rides
---http://www.thesupercarexperience.com.au/

***Family
Family pass to zoo, fun park, picnic
---http://www.dreamworld.com.au/content/standard.asp?name=BuyTickets

***Science types
Buy a star, sponsor a shark, shares in new growth forest
---http://www.nccnsw.org.au/
---http://www.universalstarcouncil.com/

***Sporties
Tickets to games, membership to sports club, gym membership, gym passes
---http://www.brumbies.com.au/act.rugby/page/53094


***Adventure Addicts:
Gift vouchers to kayak weekends, bridge climb, parasailing, flying lesson/s
---http://www.freemanx.com.au/
---http://www.australianexplorer.com/experiences/

***Epicureans:
Restaurant vouchers, cooking classes, wine tastings
---http://www.perfectgiftcertificates.com.au/PG/restaurants.aspx


***Humble Humans: Charity vicarious gifts
Water wells, goats, RSPCA donation, Oxfam, donations.com.au
---http://www.karmacurrency.com.au/about.aspx
---http://www.perfectgiftcertificates.com.au/PG/restaurants.aspx

And what about the humbuggers out there saying that Christmas is all about ‘stuff’, that to ride through the neighbourhood on a bike has more street cred than a cardboard promise, well, you won’t have to change a tyre, reboot software or dash down to the shops for batteries. Just share a brandy with your friends by the fireplace and toast to Scrooge.


References:

(ref 1 = SMH article)
Clarissa Keil, Dec 13 2007, “End the unwanted gift cycle - give a goat or two instead”
December 13, 2007
http://www.smh.com.au/news/opinion/

(ref 2 ebay article)
eBay, 20 Dec 2004, “Santa's unwanted £1.6 billion Christmas presents could be a Boxing Day bonanza”
http://pages.ebay.co.uk/community/aboutebay/news/pressreleases/consumer/12_20_2004.html

(ref 3 Tuckerman)
Robin Tuckerman, Nov 10 2005, “Packaging the Statistics”.

(ref 4 PCA)
Packaging Council of Australia, Feb 2006, “Submission to the Productivity Commission – Waste Generation and Resource Efficiency Inquiry”.