As we approach the highly anticipated holiday season, it is important to take a moment to reflect on how we choose to spend money during this time. We are constantly bombarded by our culture telling us to live life in a certain way: buying costumes we will wear once for Halloween or buying decorations that end up in a landfill the day after a holiday. Furthermore, in our position of privilege, it is important to be conscious of how we choose to spend our money because while we are stressing about what to wear to whatever Halloween party, other kids are stressing about how they will eat that day. These practices, like the daily use of single-use plastic, are not sustainable and need to stop being normalized.
The notion that the ideal lifestyle is only achieved through consumption is fed to society constantly, especially during the holiday season. In the end, it won’t matter whether you look cute in your Shein Halloween costume. What will matter is whether we and those who aren’t as privileged as us have clean water sources, whether we can breathe clean, unpolluted air and whether we don’t ingest microplastics through our food sources. Although you might not think that wearing the costume you want might have this impact, millions of other people around the world are thinking the same. Our little choices, multiplied by millions across the world, add up and affect our planet and the creatures that live on it.
Instead of buying costumes made in sweatshops by exploited workers, be creative and look for how to make do with what you have. If you find yourself in a position where you can’t seem to piece together a costume, go out and make one by buying articles of clothing that you will actually use later on. What’s important here is that your clothes (which typically are not made of biodegradable materials) don’t end up in landfills. It might be cheaper to buy a costume made by companies that exploit their workers and use materials that aren’t sustainable, but in the end, if you can afford to, being kind to people and the environment is more important. It’s important that we are kind to the planet and honor the labor of those workers that make the items you wear and use.
Ultimately, what we cherish most are the memories, regardless of what we were wearing or how a house was decorated. I suggest that we use the holiday season as a time of reflection and renovation by avoiding going out to buy things we do not need. I suggest that we be content with what we have and be creative in order to make costumes and decorations out of materials we have around our houses. I guarantee that the memories and fun you will have doing this is something you will cherish more than an itchy costume. Keep in mind that planet Earth is not ours. It belongs to future generations, and as good guests we should take care of it.