Tag: holidays

Last year, I wrote about shaking up your Valentine’s Day spending, focusing on how those of us who exchange traditional Valentine’s Day gifts can think about ways to spend that make a difference in the world. I also mentioned the importance of not giving people the gift of a Valentine’s Day guilt-trip. If you believe that Valentine’s Day is just a commercial holiday and your significant other is really into Valentine’s Day, for heaven’s sake, be willing to go against your principles a little to celebrate the day with them. It’s hard to be loving when you’re busy be self-righteous.

While most of the links in last year’s post are still good, I wanted to update the post for 2018.

Restaurants

I didn’t write about restaurants at all last year, which was an oversight. After all, in the United States, Valentine’s Day is second only to Mother’s Day when it comes to eating out. If you decide not to eat at home on Valentine’s Day, consider making reservations at an independent restaurant owned by someone who could use your support this year. Unhappy with anti-immigrant sentiments that have become all too common over the past couple of years? Look for immigrant-owned restaurants in your area. Concerned about the environment? Go to a good farm-to-table restaurant. Want to help people up and out of poverty? Consider patronizing a restaurant with a mission to do just that. And if you had a good experience, consider taking the time to post a positive review online.

Chocolate

All the fair-trade confectioners I mentioned last year — Lucky Chocolates, Mama Ganache, and Lake Champlain — have Valentine’s Day offerings this year, too. In addition, you may want to consider one of Chuao Chocolatier’s gift boxes or collections.

Jewelry

As I was doing research for this article, I ended up learning a bit more about ethical sources for diamonds. I found one online shop that made some great claims about the sources behind its jewelry, but when I tried to verify the claims the company made, I ran across an article that threw some doubt on them. The article led me to CanadaMark diamonds, sustainable diamonds that can be traced from mine to final product and which are sold exclusively by James Allen. It seems to me that if you are planning on giving diamond jewelry for Valentine’s Day, this could be an excellent source.

An alternative, of course, would be to present your significant other with jewelry that already has a history — whether it is something from your family that has been passed on to you or something you purchased at an antique store.

Flowers

In addition to the ideas I shared last year, I’ve found two online retailers with beautiful arrangements and a commitment to ethical sourcing. Farmgirl Flowers tries to source from U.S. growers as much as possible, although they’ve had to create partnerships with international growers as well in order to continue to grow their business. The Bouqs Company partners directly with U.S. and South American farms; by cutting out the middleman, they can pay the farmers more than they would otherwise make. Each bouquet available online actually features the farmer who provides the flowers.

Zero Waste Ideas

As I was doing research for this post, I stumbled across this article on zero-waste Valentine’s Day gifts, including giving bulk candy in jars. I would encourage you not to give away candy corn in jars, but that’s just me.

Disclaimer

When I watched The Chocolate Case last year, it drove home how difficult it can be for well-meaning people to bring fair-trade merchandise to market. I still believe in buying fair-trade when possible, but keep in mind that not all suppliers follow the rules. Also, I have not used all of the retailers I mention here. I’ve discovered many of them solely through research.

I’m taking a break from blogging to spend time with a loved one. I will return to my weekly posts on Monday, Feb. 5.

On the first Saturday in November, my church hosts a large craft fair. I usually show up, and I frequently buy something. One year I even shared a table with someone. If you know me, you know that this wasn’t my best idea. I’m not gifted at doing crafts. But my husband had been unemployed, so I thought I’d try to supplement our income by selling crafts. (Ha!)

I tell you this to let you know that I have nothing against craft fairs. I enjoy them, and I believe in supporting independent craftspeople.

But if you belong to an organization that hosts such fairs, consider supplementing the fair with alternative and/or fair-trade gifts. If you belong to an organization that doesn’t have a craft fair, consider starting a new tradition with an alternative gift fair.

This takes planning. It may even require you to get approval from others before you can move ahead, so I’m promoting this idea many months before you might host such a fair.

Alternative gift fairs come in many shapes and sizes. New Dream (which I mentioned in a previous post) has a detailed eight-week planning guide for a large alternative gift fair that features several tables offering charitable gifts. When shoppers check out, calligraphers complete cards for gift recipients. There is also a table with information on making the holidays more meaningful.

The gift fair could also feature many fair-trade gifts from different vendors, or it could focus on goods from just one vendor. Both SERRV and Equal Exchange give suggestions about hosting a fair that features their goods.

The fairs that I think could be most attractive feature some combination of gift options. The ELCA has an excellent Good Gifts Fair Planning Guide that suggests adding fair-trade vendors to an alternative gift fair or including a small, relevant gift for each charitable contribution, such as a water bottle for people who donate money to help pay for a well or water purification tablets. This guide also suggests gift fairs at different times of the year, including Easter and Mother’s Day. Equal Exchange has an article on Winter Park Presbyterian Church, which hosts a fair that includes fair-trade goods, homemade gifts, and opportunities to make charitable contributions.

If you’re gifted in event planning, hosting some sort of alternative gift fair could be an excellent way for you to make a difference. If you’ve already done this, or if you decide to tackle this idea, I’d love to hear from you!

My husband does many wonderful things. If the basement floods or something breaks down, he tackles the problem. He helps my mom by carrying heavy things for her or fixing her computer. For one of our anniversaries, he cooked up a fabulous surprise that included breakfast and Star Blazers, a show we’d both loved when we were kids.

He’s not very good at Mother’s Day. Whether it’s because holidays don’t mean as much to him as they do to me or because he can sometimes be forgetful (even when I remind him), more than one Mother’s Day came and went with him forgetting to take our child shopping for some sort of gift or card. That didn’t happen every single Mother’s Day, but it did happen a lot. And it hurt.

What would have made my Mother’s Day would have been if someone had offered to shop with my child sometime before the holiday. That never happened, but one of my friends who lived far away and who knew about the situation did once send me a Mother’s Day card signed by her children, and that meant a lot to me.

I’m not the saintly person I aspire to be. There are plenty of times I’ve wallowed in my pain. But I have learned over the years that I can use that pain for good; it can teach me to look out for others in the same or similar situations. The fact is, there are plenty of other people for whom Mother’s Day is a difficult day. Some feel forgotten, like I did. Some are single mothers of young children. Some are mourning the loss of their mother or a child. Some are in a difficult relationship with their mother or with one or more children. Some women wonder if they’ll ever have the child they want so badly.

For the past few years, I’ve put out a call on Facebook: “If this Mother’s Day will be hard for you, let me know.” Not many people speak up, and so far the most I’ve been able to do is send a card to someone who lost their mother. But I try to keep an eye out for people could use a little extra love and support on Mother’s Day. I do the same for Father’s Day.

Whether Mother’s Day is painful or wonderful or just another day for you, I’d like to ask you to join me this year in looking for people who might be hurting. Do you know a mom who would be thrilled if you took her kids shopping for gifts ahead of time? Is there someone who would enjoy a card or a phone call or some flowers? Is there someone you could invite to brunch? Do you know a single mom who might appreciate some time to herself?

There are lots of articles out there telling women who are feeling hurt on Mother’s Day to remember it’s just one day and to count their blessings. While there is a certain truth to that, let’s also acknowledge that their pain is real. Let’s stop telling people that they shouldn’t feel hurt and, instead, let’s actively seek ways we can be kind to them. What hurting people need isn’t a lecture. It’s love.

When I was a kid, April Fool’s Day made me slightly nervous, even though I enjoyed the chance to say “April Fool!” to someone if I could manage it. Although the pranks that I worried about would not have harmed me and never actually happened to me, they still loomed large in my mind. I heard about people switching the salt and sugar, rendering their victims’ food inedible. I feared buckets of water falling off doors onto me, although I’ve never seen or heard of that happening to anyone I know. When I was a teen, I was horrified by the story of parents who set clocks ahead, then woke their children at some ungodly hour and informed them they were late for school.

I’ve managed a few good pranks — none of them on April Fool’s Day — during my life, but what I was so proud of made others genuinely unhappy, even though the pranks were not that big a deal in my eyes. In college, I was left alone in the room of a friend who had an extensive collection of classical, jazz, and rock CDs. Bored, I came up with the idea of switching the disks around, but I decided that merely swapping disks would be too easy. I pulled several CDs from different genres and mixed them up so that you might find Beethoven in a Charlie Parker case, Charlie Parker in a Pink Floyd case, Pink Floyd in a U2 case, and U2 in a Beethoven case. I remember my friend telling me months later that he was still finding disks that were out of place. He didn’t sound amused; he sounded frustrated. I recently asked him how he felt about the prank, and he told me that it was a “monumental pain.”

Then there was the time my daughter asked me to check her boots for spiders. I reached in and let out a yelp, jerking my hand backward. Although I still smile when she brings it up, she didn’t find the prank funny. She told me that, for just a moment, she was scared that I was truly hurt.

I don’t mean to be Debbie Downer. It should be clear that I love pulling a good prank as much as the next person. And not all pranks are horrible. A friend told me that she felt amused and loved when her tree was TPed. But clearly some of the pranks I’ve taken great pride in are not remembered in the same way by my victims, so if you have any doubt at all about how someone will feel about a prank, it’s best not to try it.

I’d like to propose that we still celebrate April Fool’s Day, but reconsider who the fool is. What if we decided to engage in foolish play rather than trying to fool someone else? Remembering my own childhood anxiety over April Fool’s Day, I established April 1st as “Backwards Day” with my daughter. (I believe I got the idea from a book, but I can’t remember the source.) I woke her with a loving “good night” and then went through her bedtime routine with her, including a bedtime story. At breakfast time, I tried to serve foods that we would normally have for dinner, starting with dessert. Of course I served breakfast for dinner. I tucked my daughter in that evening with a “good morning.” Backwards Day wasn’t always easy to pull off. I returned to work full-time when she was three months old, so we usually had to fit our celebrations around work and daycare or school. Even more challenging, once she was in school we sometimes found ourselves visiting relatives on April 1st, since her spring break often fell around that time. While I could still wake her with a “good night” and read her a bedtime story before breakfast, I never felt comfortable asking family members to adjust their meals to fit our celebration.

My daughter came to really enjoy Backwards Day. We dropped it during her teen years, but it was a special part of her childhood. Given her reaction to my “spider in the boot” trick, I’m glad she has the memories of our silly celebrations on April 1st instead of “that time Mom woke me at 3:30 a.m. and told me I needed to hurry up and get ready for school.”

What can you do this year to make April 1st a day of silly, fun memories for everyone?

A 2016 survey showed that 87% of parents in the United States planned to give their children Easter baskets. If you will be putting together an Easter basket, consider doing something a little different this year.

Buy Fairly Traded Chocolate

If you’ve been reading my blog for any length of time, you probably knew I was going to say that. It was my love of chocolate and my discovery that my buying habits could be supporting slavery that first started me down the path to becoming a modern-day abolitionist. That’s why I talk about buying fair-trade chocolate so much.

If you are concerned about slavery and chocolate, you will be happy to know that you can find fair-trade chocolate bunnies and eggs. Of course, you should expect to pay more than you would for many of the best-selling Easter treats from major candy companies. You can save money by checking Aldi before ordering chocolate online; I have found UTZ-certified chocolate Easter candy at Aldi in the past.

If you can’t get fairly traded chocolate at a local store, check these online retailers:

Divine Chocolate makes both milk and dark chocolate mini eggs and candy-coated milk chocolate eggs. We have purchased these in the past and enjoy the taste.

Lucky Chocolates has a variety of chocolate bunny offerings, including one with coconut nests. If you want to get really fancy, buy some Easter truffles.

Mama Ganache offers chocolate bunnies in three different sizes, as well as creme-filled eggs. If you prefer to buy complete Easter baskets, they also offer some of those, including a vegan option.

Lake Champlain Chocolates has a large variety of chocolate bunnies, eggs and even carrots, including some vegan chocolates. Like Mama Ganache, they offer complete Easter baskets.

Include a Charitable Gift

Consider swapping out or supplementing some of the contents of an Easter basket with a charitable gift. There are, of course, many different charities you could give to. I will focus on a couple of options related to animals traditionally associated with Easter: lambs, rabbits, and chicks.

(1) Donate livestock to people in need. Heifer International gives many different animals to families, including the animals I mentioned above. While these animals do provide for the families in all sorts of ways, including supplying wool, milk, pest control, and eggs, they are also sources of animal protein for the people who receive them. If this bothers you, you may want to consider my next suggestion.

(2) Make a donation to an organization that looks out for the welfare of animals. Your local animal shelter may very well receive some unloved bunnies soon after Easter, and at any time of year, they will need to provide space for pets waiting for adoption. You could also give to organizations that look out for the welfare of farm animals, such as the ASPCA.

When I planned this post, I was going to focus solely on Easter baskets. As so often happens, my plans changed the day before the post was to go live. I ran across #doctorsoverdresses on Twitter. The woman behind this hashtag, Holly Stallcup, is encouraging women to spend money on covering women’s medical bills rather than buying a new Easter dress. I don’t remember when I last bought an Easter dress for myself (for that matter, it’s been years since I bought one for my daughter), but since Americans spent approximately $3 billion on new clothes for Easter last year, I think this is a great idea! Holly is the executive director of a nonprofit called Mended Women, and she started this campaign in association with her nonprofit. But — and I hope she won’t mind my saying this — I think you can give to other charities if you prefer to do so. The important thing is to question your priorities this Easter.

Last week I suggested shaking up Valentine’s Day by moving the emphasis from romantic love to love in general. I also made it clear that I am not against celebrating romantic love.

If you are in a romantic relationship, you and your loved one may choose not to celebrate Valentine’s Day. But some people love flowers, candy, and romantic candlelit dinners, and that’s okay. If you want a traditional Valentine’s Day celebration but would like to use your celebration to make a difference, consider these options.

Chocolates

If you really love the idea of a heart-shaped box of chocolates, make it slave-free. You’ll pay more, but you’ll know that you aren’t benefiting from slave labor in the cocoa industry.

Lucky Chocolates offers several options, including boxes of truffles and a box filled with toffees, cherry cordials, and cocoa almonds.

Mama Ganache offers half- or whole pound boxes of truffles. You can pick from several truffle collections, including vegan truffles.

Lake Champlain has three different heart-shaped boxes, one with just truffles and two with an assortment of chocolates. There’s also a heart-shaped box intended for giving to children.

Flowers

Those bouquets you buy for your sweetheart are often shipped over a long distance from countries like Ecuador and Colombia. Many women and children work in the floral industry, and the women are frequently subject to sexual harassment. In addition, workers are exposed to harmful pesticides. Fair trade certifications are awarded to farms that provide fair wages and good working conditions for their employees.

You can find fair-trade bouquets at Whole Foods stores and online at One World Flowers and 1-800-flowers.com. You may also want to see if locally grown flowers are available where you live.

Jewelry

An estimated 20,000 children work in the gold mining industry, and child labor, including forced labor, is a problem in the diamond industry as well. End Slavery Now notes that boycotting diamonds is not an ideal solution to labor problems in the industry, because some national economies depend heavily on mining diamonds. The organization suggests specifically looking for conflict-free diamonds if you plan to buy diamond jewelry.

You may also wish to consider purchasing fair-trade jewelry. Two possible sources for jewelry are Serrv and Ten Thousand Villages.

Cards

As I mentioned last week, I’m all for homemade valentines, and I don’t think they have to be stunning to be worth giving and receiving. But not everyone feels up to making a valentine. If you want to purchase a valentine for your loved one and also want to make a difference, consider looking for a card printed on recycled paper. This valentine can even be planted; it contains wildflower seeds. Of course, if you write a heartfelt poem to your sweetie in the card, they may not want to part with it!

While I believe in making a Valentine’s Day a celebration of love for all, I can’t say this strongly enough: giving people who love Valentine’s Day a guilt trip because you view it as a commercial holiday just comes across as self-righteous and puritanical. If you are married or dating and you and your loved one enjoy celebrating the day together, by all means, do it! Perhaps some of the suggestions above will inspire ways you can celebrate your love while also promoting justice and caring for the planet.