Lose the greed

Black Friday was an ugly day for Grand Rapids, Mich.

The Grand Rapids Press reported that about a dozen people were trampled at area Wal-Marts when the doors opened Friday morning. One man was treated for a leg injury.

“When they first opened the doors, he ran and he tripped and fell, and everybody just trampled over him,” his sister said.

Another man was struck in the head with a shower-curtain rod, and one 13-year-old girl was left with footprint-like bruises on her back. Her mother said her daughter “went to help a pregnant lady get up, and they all came down on her.”

All this for what? Hewlett Packard Pavilion laptops for $398, 42-inch plasma TVs for $997 and other holiday shopping bargains.

Rather than expressing our disgust with this incident and pointing out the obvious—that Americans are obsessed with stuff—we would like to suggest some non-commercial, creative and perhaps even charitable alternatives for your Christmas giving.

Ten Thousand Villages (http://www.tenthousandvillages.com) offers fair trade handicrafts from around the world. A perusal of their Web site turns up unique wall hangings from India, jewelry from Kenya and Indonesia, bamboo lounge chairs and mother-of-pearl chopsticks from Vietnam and exotic instruments from Cameroon and Nepal. Ten Thousand Villages is one of the largest fair trade organizations in North America and has been marketing products made by artisans from over 30 countries since 1946. Because they are a fair trade organization, you can be sure your money will go to people who work in good conditions and are paid a fair wage.

If you’re feeling charitable this Christmas, check out Oxfam Unwrapped (http://www.oxfamunwrapped.com). You can buy a goat, calf, donkey or camel for someone or pay for things like training a midwife, feeding a family for a month or providing safe water for 50 people. You receive a giftcard to give at Christmas and your purchase itself will go to needy people in one of 26 impoverished countries.

Then again, rather than spending even more money that you do not have this Christmas, why not try something creative? Something thoughtful will probably mean more to the ones you’re gifting than another Old Navy sweater or pop CD. Buy Nothing Christmas (http://www. buynothingchristmas.org) is an iniative begun in 2001 by Canadian Mennonites to encourage people to de-commercialize Christmas and to end over-consumption. The site is a great resource for creative, low-cost gift ideas.

Some examples: Make a mix tape or CD, choose songs that make you think of that person and explain why you choose that song under each title. Fill a tin or basket with homemade goodies. Create coupons offering your time. Shop at thrift stores for unique gifts. Offer to teach a skill you have. Give fair-trade coffee, tea or chocolate. Buy a used book and write inside the cover why you chose that book for that person.

Of course, the despicable behavior of some Grand Rapids citizens last weekend is not necessarily characteristic of all Americans —but it’s obvious Christmas has become a nauseatingly commercial holiday.

This Christmas, eschew extravagant consumption and try something new.

Jesus wasn’t born for red-tag sales.