Happy Sharing Day!

Today is Sharing Day.

Last year I made a new holiday, if only for my close family and circle of friends, and it was based on the idea of a Season of Sharing.

We have a Sharing Day and our friends and family come over. We all bring a plate to share. We all bring some loose change to add to our Sharing Bowl. This loose change is split between two of my favourite non-profit organisations.

I wanted to opt out of the ‘consumption cycle’ and not buy or receive presents for or from those closest to me, just in order to say that I had ticked them off a list, that they had ticked me off theirs, and we had all acquired more and more stuff, contributing to a consumerist society that I am desperately trying to fight in our global culture. It started, as I said, on the first Saturday of December, 2011, and we are doing it again tonight.

We love Op/Thrift stores. We love hand me downs. We love how old stuff looks cooler than all of the same identical stuff in every second shop we walk by. I don’t like shopping. I don’t like plastic. I don’t like how people go to the shopping centre for entertainment.

In fact it makes me really anxious.

This year, for all the members of my immediate family I have only bought one new item. Not each. One. Everyone else has gotten something vintage or recycled or sought out that applies to their personality. Something that I know they will love, either thematically or aesthetically. I didn’t take a list of their names to the shops. I looked online. I only ticked the ‘used’ box in my ebay searches. I went to the second hand shops. Garage sales. Markets.

The planet doesn’t NEED more stuff.

I don’t need any more stuff.

I figure everything I’m ever going to need has been made already. The only things I think I will want that will be new are items of clothing (undies very much included) that I may need for a specific purpose.

But even they can be made out of vintage fabrics (undies very much excluded).

My Sharing Day has become a thing with my friends. The Bean woke up SO excited this morning. He has been saving his money and he has raided his money box to add to the Sharing Bowl.

We are giving over some of our wealth to help some people that have none. It’s not an amount that will change the world.

But maybe it’s a concept that could?

Things the Bean has said:

1 *Fart*

TB: I think I really do have steam inside me, Mama.

2.

TB: Why do rock stars always wear their shelter hats wrong?

3. Dragon Cat moans.

TB: Look at me! Look at me!

DC: *growl*

Me: Are you squashing the cat?

TB: *cries*

Me: Come here.

TB: But I love him.

Me: He loves you too but when you squash him how do you think he feels?

TB: Sad.

Me: And?

TB: Angry?

Me: And?

TB: I don’t know.

Me: Scared?

TB: Yeah but I love him.

Me: But do you want him to feel sad and scared and angry?

TB: No, but I NEED to squash him.

4. Farm animals visit kinder

TB: I can’t wait to feed all the animals. Except the goats. I don’t want to feed them. The have giant horns and they’re butt headers.

5. Eating veggie and tofu kebabs.

TB: This is like food threading.

6.

TB: I like Macca’s.

Me: We never have Macca’s, you don’t love Macca’s.

TB: I do.

Me: It’s not healthy for you.

TB: Why?

Me: It’s full of chemicals.

TB: I don’t want to eat chemicals.

Me: No way.

TB: But the girl on the picture was smiling. Macca’s makes her happy. And it makes her run faster. I need to run faster.

Me: Sometimes the people in those pictures are pretending. If you eat Macca’s all the time it won’t make you run faster. It’ll make you sick and big and your skin bad. It’s super unhealthy. Besides, if you wanna run faster you can just eat healthy food. That works, too.

TB: Yeah and exercise like riding my scooter.

Me: Exactly.

TB: And also there’s one sugar food that’s good to help me run faster.

Me: what?

TB: Ice cream.

7.

Me: Can you please put your doona away?

TB: I can’t. It’s steam and it just keeps following me everywhere.