Giving gifts? Consider this eco-friendly idea

While spending last holiday season with my daughter’s family living across the U.S./Canada border from Blaine, I witnessed the bubbling enthusiasm of grandchildren in setting up a rather large Christmas tree in their living room. Both parents are following different religions, neither Christian, and yet a well-decorated Christmas tree religiously comes up in their home every December, and stays there till New Year.

Christmas draws them into action from their preoccupation with the TV, internet and cell phone. The teamwork of parents and children is a sight to behold. It’s wonderful to see them put up a tree and decorate it with lights, toys and gifts, finishing it with a train going around a snow-covered toy city is just wonderful.

The real gifts to be given are secretly bought or prepared a few days before, then wrapped and hidden and are presented only on Christmas morning. Christmas decorating is hard work and needs a creative mind, but gift hunting is an even greater challenge that needs imagination and thought for others.

For a gift to be good, ideally it must be such that the receiver loves it, needs it and is useful. It’s even better if we put in our own sweat by painting, sculpting or crafting it. Mostly we apply this yardstick for choosing or making gifts, be it Christmas or birthdays.

Recently I came across an enthusiastic father who prepared a wooden checkerboard for chess before Christmas. Most of us have a good collection of tools at home and they can be put into creative endeavors. I felt elated to see the checkerboard now permanently occupying the coffee table of the sitting room, surrounded by chess-playing siblings.

My son, Nipun, prepared a carved wooden name plate for a neighbor. He tiptoed after midnight and put the nameplate on their door. It was a thoughtful surprise for the neighbor when they noticed it on Christmas morning.

Once the gifting season is over, when we sit back and re-look at the gifts we received and gave, people may worry that some of them could soon occupy landfills or just lie unnoticed in some corner. While a smile on the child when they receive a gift is precious, one can be more astute in choosing a gift that is really useful.

If not, it could be our ignominious contribution to the eco-disaster for Earth and the pandemic of consumerization for society. There is no pride in increasing an already unwieldy ecological footprint.

Two years ago, I created a tiny yoga mat from craft paper for my youngest grandson, Kurush. Maybe he liked the idea of self-made gifts because last year he spent 15 days secretly weaving a cashmere scarf to surprise his dad, Zubin. In turn, Zubin gifted a beautiful shawl made by First Nation peoples in Canada to his wife. Our Indigenous communities deserve accolades for using natural products as gifts and helping the world limit our ecological footprint.

In addition to our loved ones, let’s have Mother Earth smile when we give gifts.

Nilesh Shukla is a former Blaine resident who recently relocated to Delta, B.C. Shukla has a passion for making the world a better place, one gift at a time.