Plus some ideas for easy (and green) last-minute presents

By Julia Stephenson

 

 

I live on the King’s Road in a flat high in the rooftops next to Peter Jones.  My study overlooks the haberdashery department so every Christmas I have a bird’s eye view of the festive furore and tinsel tussling within.
 

Peering down into the congested streets below I wince at the scurrying female beasts of burden laden down beneath tons of Christmas shopping as they dodge livid 4 x 4 drivers, furious OAP’s driving tiny hatchbacks and angry white van men making Christmas deliveries.
 

I can’t help but notice that while most of the women in festive meltdown (and it is only women) look and sound just like me — even down to the precise shade of Harbour Club blonde — I am not of them at all.

This is because I am in fact a man. Despite having a poor sense of direction, no interest in gadgets or football and not looking like a man, nonetheless I am, most definitely, a man.

Women all fall into three categories: men, women and girls. Men fall into three categories: men, boys and hairdressers. It sounds simplistic, but spookily enough you’ll find no trouble fitting practically everyone you know into one of these compartments once you give it a go.
 

One of my principal man characteristics is that I celebrate Christmas like a man - that is, I do nothing very much at all. Men create far fewer carbon emissions than women at this time of year as all most of them do is hide from their snapping-turtle womenfolk in sheds or slump in front of the telly, which as long as they switch it off at the mains when they turn in, is far more eco-friendly than racing around buying their share of the estimated sixty-five million unwanted, over-packaged presents and forests of wrapping paper (enough to stretch all around Guernsey according to one eco-statistician) with which to wrap them in.
 

Women need to become more like men at Christmas which will reduce their stress levels hugely.
 

I can’t understand why my girlfriends buy so many presents; the resulting hassle means they have to be practically hospitalised for stress by December 25.  One buys gifts - things like trays and tapestry kits - for her cleaner, 'facialist' and hairdresser.

My hairdresser doesn’t want a present; he wants a nice big tip. Like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman he insists that ‘cash works for me’. This is not considered to be very thoughtful, but who wants thoughts when you could have money? Last year a friend ambushed me just before Christmas with a compilation book of Jeremy Clarkson’s motoring columns and Victoria Beckham’s Style Secrets. I’m told it’s the thought that counts, but these sorts of thoughts are of no use to anyone.
 

As you might imagine I don’t get many presents — no one dares take the risk and now my inamorato just buys me stuff he wants.  Last year’s presents, a camcorder and a DVD player, were so complicated I gave them back to him, which was the perfect solution as I knew he secretly wanted them anyway. A vibrator was another unsuccessful present, which with its enormous girth and terrible reverberating spikes and lumps looked agonising. Anyone who has ever suffered from cystitis would quite naturally run a mile from such an instrument of torture. ‘But ten million women have bought one,’ he insisted, but I reckon it is men who are buying them because of their insidious belief that technology is the solution to everything — including global warming.
 

The thing is that if Christmas was left to men you’d end up with a tree (undecorated) and massive amounts of booze. They are happily free of the need to send cards, buy presents, put up fairy lights or stay up till midnight making mince pies. It’s time for ‘we women’ (as they say in the Daily Mail) to drop our festive expectations and embrace a seasonal slow-down — for the sake of our sanity as well as the planet’s.
 

As a man, buying the Christmas tree is, of course essential, even though it is an eco-conundrum. The trouble is most Christmas trees are grown in vast mono-plantations and drenched in pesticides. While they will soak up some CO2, these forests are eerie places with very little biodiversity. Cutting down such a tree, transporting it hundreds of miles, draping electric lights over it, then discarding it three weeks later is such a waste.

A better option, especially if you have a garden, is to buy a British one which has roots so it can be replanted in the garden afterwards. A staggering six million fir trees are bought in the UK at Christmas, many of which end up in landfill, unless you are lucky enough to have a council that will collect them to grind down as mulch — a far better solution.
 

Green guru, Donnachadh McCarthy, has an even better idea.  If Christmas tree fans bought a different type of tree (bay and holly trees can look very festive when they’re decorated), kept their thermostat turned down a few notches so it doesn’t bake to death and then planted it outside after Christmas, we’d create beautiful lasting swathes of green throughout the country.
 

And meanwhile, for those of us still seeking a planet and people boosting present or two, here are some ideas...
 

• Support British farmers by treating someone to a weekly organic fruit and veg box all year round. www.farmaround.co.uk or www.abelandcole.co.uk
   

• www.spieziaorganics.com make gorgeous organic body and face creams in Cornwall and package them stylishly in recycled cardboard.
   

• www.tree2mydoor.com specialise in natural trees, (including young Christmas trees), and wild flower gifts, eco friendly shopping bags and wild flower seeds.
   

• Say au revoir to expensive bottled water and organise spring water all year round by setting up your lucky giftee with a water purification system beneath their kitchen sink www.freshwaterfilter.com
   

• The Woodland Trust has planted more than eight million trees, creating new native woodland throughout the UK. By dedicating trees in the name of a friend or relative you will be helping them plant even more. You can choose to dedicate one, three or ten trees from a list of 20 woods across the UK. For each dedication you will receive a beautiful printed certificate personalised with a message of your choice, plus a map of your chosen wood and a gift card.

• Help a friend cut their fuel bills by giving a 2 hour greening-up session with eco coach, Donnachadh McCarthy www.3acorns.co.uk

• Make someone a Friend of the Chelsea Physic Garden so they can enjoy the tranquility of London's Secret Garden throughout the year www.chelseaphysicgarden.co.uk

• www.naturalcollection.com have a wide range of original and useful green gifts. 
   

• Check out the wonderful Born Free Foundation’s selection of presents and greeting cards. Your gift will make 2009 a bit happier for the wretched animals rescued from appalling zoos around the world.  Just a fiver, for example, will provide a good supply of vitamins for Jules (no relation); a Romanian lioness recently re-homed in their sanctuary in South Africa and give the recipient a ready-brek glow all year round. 

 

 

 

A Born Free Christmas card