The flow of junk mail’s really been picking up lately at our house, which is no surprise considering the crazy consumption-fest that looms on the near horizon. I speak, naturally, of Christmas. Like many people, I sort of love the holiday but really truly don’t love all the consumerism and waste that goes along with it. I mean, everybody SAYS that, but still the madness goes on. Anyway. This arrived in the mailbox yesterday:
Notice particularly this:
O.K. So what we have here, my little elves, is a mass-mailing, paper-using catalog that purports to carry an earth-friendly message about seedlings and habitat restoration and blah blah blah. Place an order, they donate a seedling to the National Forest Foundation.
I know I’m a total curmudgeon, but to borrow a metaphor from our newly elected leader, this is lipstick on a pig. Best-case scenario, I see the catalog, get intrigued, place an order and they donate a seedling. Worst-case, I put it in the recycling and drive it to the dropoff center and then it gets transported and processed into new paper and printed and shipped to someone else’s house…which, it seems to me, is kind of a crappy reason for a tree to have died.
It doesn’t help that much of the merchandise inside is stuff like this:
A fire screen with the school seal of your choice–a monument both to the buyer’s alma mater and to her apparently appalling taste.
An indoor device for making S’mores that, itself, looks like a S’more!
A battery-powered weather gadget for kids that, much like sticking your head outside, tells you what the weather is like.
Stuff, in other words, that NOBODY NEEDS.
Am I being a jerk? Is the Plow & Hearth Campaign to Reforest America actually the best thing that’s happened to the environment all year? Is there someone who wants to stand up and say, "I really love my indoor S’mores maker"? Bring it on, holiday-lovers.
