I don’t know if it’s just me, but the build up to Christmas seems to begin earlier and earlier every single year.

Shops and businesses are constantly in competition for customers, more and more festive ads released by the day, and chocolate boxes slowly piling up in the supermarkets; all in preparation for the festivities come December. Black Friday, for most retailers, isn’t just one day; it’s a week or longer in some cases in an attempt to entice the consumer, leading to potential impulse-buys. We can’t seem to resist a bargain.

The cards and gifts. Just think about the waste: the wrapping paper, the sticky tape, the cardboard boxes and the plastic. How are all these cards and gifts transported? Often by road or air, if you have ordered online, the items will arrive at your house in boxes for you to unpack, then wrap and potentially re-send by air or road to their intended recipient.  

We are encouraged and often do buy items that we wouldn’t normally consider buying at any other time of year, or we feel we have to buy a gift for somebody because we don’t want to give them nothing. But do they want it? I’m sure we’ve all received a gift that we don’t need or want that ends up at the back of a cupboard for years and never gets used. Is it all the fault of the retailer or are we too easily influenced by fancy advertising or the thought of a bargain?

The Christmas dinner: the food pinnacle of the year. Family members join together spending hours preparing the delicious main event before everyone gathers round the table to indulge. I should probably say overindulge, since there seems to be so much food cooked over this celebratory winter period. We cook more food than we know what to do with, and so much of it just gets thrown away.

The beautiful Christmas tree. But the dilemma is: real or fake? Cutting down a tree, and you can’t guarantee that one will be planted in its place. But a fake tree, although they last longer, is generally made of plastic. Just which one to choose?

Houses are aglow with light decorations at Christmas-time, adding to the already existing light pollution.

But is all this good for our planet? With climate change regularly hitting the headlines, maybe we should think twice, and has the true meaning of Christmas been lost within its trappings?