No money for Christmas presents?
Every year you see articles about parents not having enough money for presents for their kids. But does this really have to be a bad thing?
My parents were ‘salt of the Earth’ working class people, born in 1933 and 1941 respectively, working hard from an early age on to build up Germany from the ruins and rubble it was after the Second World War. I was the first of four children, all born in a small village in the middle of nowhere in the 1960s, and my early Christmas memories are of the whole house being cleaned, everything being made to look festive, a big meal being cooked, kids all scrubbed and dressed up, a lot of stress and shouting, and then at 6 pm being lined up in front of the door and expected to beam happily for the camera my father had bought before my birth to document our family life - when in reality you didn’t feel particularly happy due to having been shouted at and the stress all day long. In reality it was a performance, a farce really.
As I got quite active in church and took religion seriously back then, I declared at the age of 12 and weeks in advance that I do NOT want presents: "After all, It isn’t MY birthday!”. Of course the usual scenario played out and I got presents - which I refused to open. Cue more shouting, upset mother, festivities ruined even more than usual.
But I stuck to my convictions, and after three such Christmases we reached a compromise. There was not going to be a big meal anymore but something simple so that mother wasn’t exhausted and rushed off her feet trying to fulfil some silly social obligations - after all, Jesus and his followers drank from wooden cups, not out of golden goblets, and if simple was good enough for them, it was good enough for us. And instead of presents we would donate the money to a good cause.
The difference this made was enormous. No more stressing about and running around for presents. No more spending money that was in short supply anyway. No longer thinking giving presents was the main point of Christmas. No fancy tableware or food, slaving in the kitchen for hours. No exhaustion. No shouting. No bad atmosphere.
And simple and easy doesn’t mean it isn’t tasty - a potato salad and sausages, or later smoked salmon (bought and stored in the freezer when it was on special) with lettuce and horseradish on toast was plenty festive enough, and quite honestly: we kids didn’t care about fancy food. We wanted plenty and tasty - and that we got in spades.
Now we simply relaxed at the table, eating and talking and enjoying ourselves while waiting for the next toast to pop up, and playing board games after dinner - playing with each other instead of with some new toy that we didn’t really need anyway. And at midnight walking through the dark and cold, with the snow crunching underneath our feed, going to mass …
These were by far the best Christmases I had with my family. It really FELT like Christmas.
Sadly when the next generation of kids came along, my siblings reverted to the old-fashioned way. Social pressure is immense, and with my niece and nephew being the only kids in our extended family for quite a while they got absolutely hammered with presents. Everyone seemed to compete with each other (I stayed out of it) and when my nephew was just 10 he got a mobile phone, a bike, a table tennis table with all the trimmings, and much more that I don’t remember anymore.
I always found it fitting that in English another word for presents is ‘gift’ - because in German ‘gift’ means poison.
And for me, these presents have always been a poison to the meaning of Christmas …
Even Australians get it - so why not Kiwis???
“Ten years ago, if a heatwave as intense as last week’s record-breaker had hit the east coast, Australia’s power supply may well have buckled. But this time, the system largely operated as we needed, despite some outages.
On Australia’s main grid last quarter, renewables and energy storage contributed more than 50% of supplied electricity for the first time, while wholesale power prices were more than 40% lower than a year earlier.
[…] shifting demand from gas and coal for power and petrol for cars is likely to deliver significantly lower energy bills for households.
Last quarter, wind generation was up almost 30%, grid solar 15% and grid-scale batteries almost tripled their output. Gas generation fell 27% to its lowest level for a quarter century, while coal fell 4.6% to its lowest quarterly level ever.
Gas has long been the most expensive way to produce power. Gas peaking plants tend to fire up only when supply struggles to meet demand and power prices soar. Less demand for gas has flowed through to lower wholesale prices.”
Full article: www.theguardian.com...
If even Australians see the benefit of solar - then why is NZ actively boycotting solar uptake? The increased line rental for electricity was done to make solar less competitive and prevent cost per kWh to rise even more than it did - and electricity costs are expected to rise even more. Especially as National favours gas - which is the most expensive form of generating electricity. Which in turn will accelerate Climate Change, as if New Zealand didn’t have enough problems with droughts, floods, slips, etc. already.
Time to Tickle Your Thinker 🧠
If a zookeeper had 100 pairs of animals in her zoo, and two pairs of babies are born for each one of the original animals, then (sadly) 23 animals don’t survive, how many animals do you have left in total?
Do you think you know the answer? Simply 'Like' this post and we'll post the answer in the comments below at 2pm on the day!
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Poll: As a customer, what do you think about automation?
The Press investigates the growing reliance on your unpaid labour.
Automation (or the “unpaid shift”) is often described as efficient ... but it tends to benefit employers more than consumers.
We want to know: What do you think about automation?
Are you for, or against?
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9.6% For. Self-service is less frustrating and convenient.
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43.2% I want to be able to choose.
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47.1% Against. I want to deal with people.
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