How to cancel Christmas (your guide to a truly sustainable festive season)

Yes, I’m talking about Christmas already. But not because I’m planning to spam you with lists of stuff you honestly don’t need. Instead, I wanted to raise the idea of cancelling Christmas – be it the whole thing, or simply the parts that make you stressed, poor and miserable.

The thing about cancelling (or toning down) Christmas – which is why I’m bringing it up now – is that you need to do it early. There will probably be some difficult conversations to have and choices to make, and if you have a plan in your mind and have set your boundaries, you’ll find it a lot easier, I promise.

Now I’m not here to tell you that you should cancel Christmas. I’m here to offer you an alternative to the status quo, and talk you though the steps that I took.

Christmas is a non-event for me. I stopped the gifts, the decorations, the excess food, the waste and the stress of it all at least six years ago. For me, Christmas is a quiet, peaceful (and inexpensive) time of year and I love it.

Every year around this time I like to counter all the ‘sustainable things to buy for him / her / them’ gift guides and ‘zero waste gifts for your boss’s wife / dog / second cousin’s goldfish’ posts by talking about how we can go about December WITHOUT BUYING ALL THE STUFF and working ourselves into a frenzy.

Cancelling Christmas might sound a little extreme, but like most things, it doesn’t have to be all or nothing. Even if you’re not up for cancelling Christmas entirely, there are probably aspects of the holiday that you’d like to let go of (or at the very least, tone down).

This is your permission slip to let the stressful, consumer-driven, wasteful, expensive, unfulfilling and unsustainable parts of Christmas go.

Getting started with ‘cancelling Christmas’

The first thing to do is decide which aspects of Christmas you’d like to cancel. It might be the entire thing, or there might just be certain aspects that you dislike. You might like to just do away with the expensive, stressful and wasteful aspects of the festivities.

(For me, cancelling Christmas is not the same as boycotting Christmas. Cancelling is more like opting out, whereas boycotting is actively avoiding Christmas. Boycotting is a lot more work. I might go to Christmas drinks with friends, or eat a mince pie, but more in the spirit of spending time with people whose company I enjoy and indulging in good food than ‘being Christmassy’. I cancel the parts I don’t want to engage in, and I make exceptions.)

To decide which aspects of Christmas you’d like to cancel, take some time to think about what Christmas means to you, which bits bring you joy, and which bits bring anguish.

(You may love Christmas baking or decorating the tree with your family. You may hate going to your cousin’s Christmas party with all the single-use plastic, processed food and your racist uncle, or find the office tradition of buying ‘novelty’ gifts for everyone in your team a little wasteful.)

Action step: write a list of all the Christmas activities and traditions you’re expecting to have this year, and divide them up into ‘things you love’, ‘things you’re ready to cancel’ and ‘undecided’. You can do this alone, or with your family – whichever you think will work best.

Those things on your ‘ready to cancel’ list are your starting point.

Start making alternative festive plans now

Hoping Christmas will go away by ignoring it until Christmas eve (when you realise it hasn’t gone away, and panic purchase a bunch of things) is not a good strategy. Instead, you need to be thinking about this stuff early. The sooner the better.

The first part of making alternative plans is thinking about what it is you don’t like about the existing plans. From there you can decide if there are alternatives that might work better or be a compromise. (I’m not saying you have to compromise, but you might prefer to ease in gradually, especially if your family is less than convinced.)

I also found it helpful to distinguish between what I actually liked and wanted to do, and what I felt obligated to do. If I’m going to celebrate Christmas, I want to come from a place of joy and not a place of obligation or guilt.

Action step: have a think about the following categories, and decide what aspects of each you like and what you don’t like, and how you could make them better (or whether you can do without).

  • Decorations;
  • Food;
  • Gift wrapping;
  • Gifts.

If you’d like some ideas for low waste options for Christmas, you’ll find this post helpful.

Make your rules and set your boundaries

The next step is to make some rules around your Christmas celebrations this year. They might be rules just for you, but more likely there will be rules (let’s call them requests, it sounds less forceful) that you need others to hear.

You might decide that you’re only giving gifts to children this year, and not adults; you might decide that you’re cooking a vegetarian Christmas dinner rather than trying to cater for everyone else; you might decide to only buy second-hand gifts and nothing new; you might decide something else entirely.

Action step: when you’re thinking about your rules, it’s really helpful to think about your ‘why’. What is it about the current situation that you find stressful and why do you want to change? You might have spiritual reasons, environmental reasons, mental health reasons, financial reasons, a mix of a few different things or something else entirely. But knowing why you want to create change will enable you to have better conversations, and also keep you motivated to stick to your rules.

Have some awkward conversations

When it comes to gifts especially, you’ll need to speak to those people you are expecting to give to you (or members of your family). But there might be other things you need to speak about, too. The sooner, the better.

It will probably be an uncomfortable conversation, and can go two ways. On one hand, they might be relieved and pleased to know there’s less expectation, pressure and expense. On the other hand, they might be outraged.

There will probably be a bit of confusion too – why not? What changed? It can be helpful to explain your ‘why’ – that stuff/waste/running around/ spending all your money/trying to do it all makes you anxious, you already have what you need, you’d rather they save their money, Christmas isn’t about the stuff…

If there is a lot of resistance, you might want to discuss compromises. (Then again, you might not!) Compromise a a good way to ease into the shifting of ‘tradition’ and expectation. If ‘no gifts’ is too brutal, maybe a secret Santa arrangement (where a pool of people only buy one gift for one person, rather than for everyone) or some rules around certain types of gifts (no plastic! only second-hand! etc) or choosing experiences instead.

Action step: have any difficult conversations that you need to, but try to make them two-way conversations and not one-way lists of demands. Express your wants and needs but listen to concerns too and try to find a joint place of understanding.

Expect resistance (change never comes in a straight line)

Just because you’ve set some rules, it doesn’t mean that others will follow or respect them. It can be helpful to have a back-up plan – what you’ll say and what you’ll do if people disregard your choices.

Shaking up Christmas can be a big deal for some people, and they may resist. It is my experience that it takes a few years to bring everyone to the party. What helps is sticking to your principles.

For example, you ask for no gifts, and you receive a bunch of stuff you don’t need and know you won’t use. I’m not sure you need to be overly gracious (although you don’t need to be rude). If you have clearly stated your rules and set your boundaries (no gifts, thanks) and someone has just stomped all over them, that’s on them, not you.

You can be polite, and say that you appreciate the gesture but you did clearly ask for no gifts. If that’s too hard (it’s very hard!) you can be polite, say nothing, and make a plan to gift them or donate them as soon as possible.

(I am wary of keeping things when I’ve specifically asked for nothing, as I don’t want to undermine my own rules and reinforce to the other person that they were in fact right. It might be easier in that moment, but it’s not helping in the long-term – and there are a lot more Christmases to come. Here’s a guide to donating unwanted Christmas gifts.)

You might only mention that you donated those unwanted gifts a few months later, when there’s less pressure. It might be that you don’t bring it up until the following Christmas, but these conversations need to happen, and to keep on happening, if you want to create change.

Action step: without overthinking things too much, give some thought to some of the stumbling blocks and how you might be able to deal with them. Having a back-up plan can be helpful.

Don’t be afraid to experiment

Don’t be afraid to try things. It’s okay to give things a go and change your mind. If you cancel Christmas and decide it’s no fun at all, you can ensure next year is the funnest yet. You can go strong this year and soften things up a little next year, if need be.

Sometimes breaking the traditions you’ve held for years can be helpful in deciding which bits you actually do enjoy (and miss).

Now I’d love to hear from you! Which bits of Christmas do you love, and which bits are you ready to cancel? Have you already started cancelling Christmas – what did you do and how did it go? How have you adapted over time? Any advice to add? We’d love to hear your thoughts so please share in the comments below!

How I’m planning my garden for food production

I’ve officially lived in my “new” (to me) house for 12 months (since October 2019). I started my garden transformation project in January and whilst it’s no way near being finished, I thought it was time for an update.

I thought I’d talk you through some of the planning and design, and explain the different choices I’ve made and why I’ve made them.

Just as a reminder, this is what I started with:

My garden is designed with permaculture principles in mind. What this means, is designing for the climate and with nature, rather than against it. I completed a Permaculture Design Course back in 2016, which is two weeks of full-time learning, and is a great foundation for making good decisions around environmentally sensitive garden design.

There are 12 principles to permaculture which help inform all the decisions. Some are self-explanatory, and others have a few different meanings depending on the context. The principles are:

  • Observe and interact;
  • Catch and store energy;
  • Obtain a yield;
  • Apply self-regulation and accept feedback;
  • Use and value renewable resources and services;
  • Produce no waste;
  • Design from patterns to details;
  • Integrate rather than segregate;
  • Use small and slow solutions;
  • Use and value diversity;
  • Use edges and value the marginal;
  • Creatively use and respond to change.

Permaculture garden design: designing for the climate

When planning a garden it’s helpful to think about the patterns (permaculture principle: design from patterns to details). Things that might change from day to day, but run in cycles, whether they are monthly, yearly or something else.

One of the biggest considerations when planning a garden is the climate. It affects so much: the types of things you can plant, when you can plant them, how much water you need, whether you need wind or sun protection, and I’m sure there’s more.

In Perth, we have a Mediterranean climate, hot (brutal) summer sun, and lack of rain. On the plus side, there are 300 days of sun a year, and where I live, we don’t get winter frost.

Which means I need to have a good and reliable water source (reticulation is a must, unless you want to water everything by hand every day in summer), and shade for the hottest summer months.

(Yes, in Perth, plants that are described as ‘needing full sun’ need some shade in summer.)

The temperature range also dictates the kinds of plants that will thrive. I can plant some tropical plants (bananas and mangoes will grow well, but not as well as in the tropics) and I can plant some cooler weather plants (like apples and pears, but they need to be low chill varieties as there won’t be a frost – which some trees need).

Mediterranean plants grow really well, as it’s the ideal climate for them.

Permaculture garden design: designing for microclimates

Within most gardens there are microclimates. Put simply, conditions will be different in different spots of the garden. Some spots will get the gentle early morning sun (here it comes from the north), others will be blasted by the brutal afternoon sun from the west). Buildings can radiate heat and create warmer zones. Some areas will be shaded in winter, others all year round.

You don’t need to have a big garden to have microclimates. A sunny spot right outside the kitchen doors only big enough for a couple of pots is a microclimate.

But it helps to be aware of microclimates (permaculture principle: design from patterns to details) so that you can choose plants that will survive best in these areas. In my garden, tropical plants need to go in the sunniest spot and get full winter as well as summer sun. Planting next to brick walls will help beause of the radiant heat (this isn’t really an option in my garden).

Deciduous trees (those that lose their leaves and go dormant in winter) can be planted in a spot that gets summer sun and winter shade (closer to buildings). Without summer sun they won’t set fruit. Because they lose their leaves in winter, they won’t cast a big shadow over the garden like an evergreen tree will.

Permaculture garden design: planning zones

In permaculture design there are five zones, but for urban gardens it’s really only practical to have zones 1 and 2 (and maybe 3).

I’ll run through the permaculture zones quickly.

The zones are often imagined as concentric circles, but when applied to a block or dwelling, they tend not to be perfectly round, following boundaries and paths.

  • Zone 1: Closest to the house and/or following well-used pathways. These are the spots that require the most attention and will be visited most frequently. Usually described as the spot for a kitchen garden: vegetables, herbs, kitchen compost bins, seed raising.
  • Zone 2: Slightly further away from the house, and requiring slightly less maintenance. Perennial vegetables might be in this zone, along with fruit trees, beehives, chickens or quail.
  • Zone 3: Further away again, and usually dedicated to farmland: farm crops, orchards, livestock and semi-sufficient bird flocks, dams. I would argue that an urban native verge could be considered as zone 3.
  • Zone 4: A semi-wild area. In permaculture design, this is where you might forage or collect firewood, and possibly grow a woodlot.
  • Zone 5: Wilderness.
  • Zone 6: Not an official permaculture zone – the wider community. This is useful to think about in urban design when there is no space for outer zones, because produce can be swapped or traded, or several households can benefit from a single tree.

When I talk about zones in my urban garden, I’m really talking about zones that I’ve decided within permaculture zones 1 and 2, with some consideration for zone 6. (Permaculture principle: obtain a yield.)

Any vegetables I grow fit into the category of ‘kitchen garden’ rather than ‘urban farm’ because I’ll want to access them frequently and will be planting smaller beds of many different crops. I’m not planting out whole fields and then leaving them to do their thing.

Plant zones I’m planning for:

  • A herb garden. Herbs add so much flavour to a meal, and are easy to grow.
  • A vegetable patch. Of course.
  • Perennial vegetables. Plant once and they come up year after year (examples: asparagus, artichokes.)
  • Deciduous fruit trees.
  • Evergreen fruit trees.
  • Lawn. (Reluctantly, but my greyhound still needs some space to whizz about!)
  • Chickens. The long-term plan is to let them free range different areas of the garden at different times of the year, but they still need a house and a base.
  • Native plants. These are waterwise plants native to the local area (or sometimes, a little further afield) that attract pollinators and provide habitat.

With all of this in mind, let me share the latest update for the garden. I’m pretty excited because this week someone is coming round to help me sort out the reticulation with my plan in mind, which means the part of all of this where I get to plant *all the things* is getting closer.

(If you’re new here, you might like to read these first: My garden transformation project (Progress update: month one to three) ; My garden transformation project: why I’m digging out my lawn by hand ; My garden transformation project (progress update: month three to six).)

Planting out the front verge

I haven’t made any progress on the verge, but now the front lawn is dug out I’ve set my sights on removing this. The plan is to plant natives here, to provide habitat and food for insects, birds and whoever else might like to come here (permaculture principle: use and value diversity).

Because it’s not my land but council land there are some restrictions around what I can plant. I’m not allowed to place fixed structures (like raised garden beds) and because there is no footpath I have to leave a 1.5m gap between the road and the plantings.

The big fiddlewood tree which dominates the verge dictates some of the design for my front yard, as it casts a huge shadow in winter over the garden.

Planting out the front yard

(With your back to the house, the front garden faces north-east.)

I finally dug out all of the grass at the front (permaculture principle: use small and slow solutions), and am pleased to report that there was been no return of couch grass over the wet winter months.

(Not to say there won’t be any regrowth, but if it hasn’t come yet I think it will be very manageable.)

The plan from here is to turn the front into one giant in ground veggie bed zone (permaculture principle: obtain a yield). It will be a rectangle from the edge where I took the photo to the green box on the far wall (the gas meter), and across about as far as the silver metal bed.

It will measure 7m x 4m, approx. (Those two cream raised beds were a temporary solution whilst I was still digging out the grass. They’ll be moved: either to the back garden, or if I can’t find space there I’ll list them on Gumtree, which is where I got them in the first place.)

Along the back where you can see a small wooden (painted blue) raised bed and a hedge, I’m going to plant deciduous fruit trees, probably stone fruit that grow in a vase shape. I’m planning to place a compost bin in between each tree. I think the big tree on the verge will give too much shade in winter for evergreen trees (permaculture principle: observe and interact).

These three metal beds were an old rainwater tank my neighbour had, that she chopped into four pieces. She is keeping the base, and gifted me the other three bits. I’m going to try placing these on the boundary between the verge and the front garden, which is under the tree. There is a bit of competition between roots here, so the raised beds will give more growing area to the plants I plant.

There is also a lot more shade, meaning it isn’t suitable for sun-loving edibles. I’m thinking I’ll plant one with herbs, one with perennials and leafy greens, and one with tea (well, plants that tea can be made from, like chamomile, rather than literal tea plants) and medicinal herbs.

Planting out the eastern side of the block

Going round the corner where the gas meter is, towards the back garden, is the eastern side of the house.

This doesn’t get much sun – the tall trees in the neighbour’s yard block the early morning sun (well, that and my fence!) and the house shades the space from the afternoon sun. It’s noticeably cooler than the rest of the yard (a microclimate!).

Because the bed along here is raised and the house is single storey, the top canopy of the trees here reach the sun for most of the day in summer. Which got me thinking – could I grow deciduous fruit trees along here?

The fruit will need 5-6 hours of sun to set, and it will only be possible on the higher branches, but I’m going to give it a go. I’m also going to espalier the trees I plant too, which means growing the branches along horizontal poles. This means I can train the branches to reach the sun, the fruit won’t grow over the neighbour’s fence, and will be easier to net for fruit fly in what is a fiddly space. I’m not sure it will work, but worth trying.

The best deciduous trees to espalier are the pome fruits (apples, pears, quince) and persimmons will also work. (Stone fruit don’t, as they prefer to grow in a vase shape and their branches aren’t suited to it.)

At the end of this space is the pomegranate I planted earlier in the year. This section gets more sun, so I’ll definitely be able to get another (deciduous) tree in here – I’m thinking a persimmon.

Planting out the back yard

The back yard is where most of the work has happened so far. Being the biggest space, there are a number of zones: the tropical / evergreen fruit tree zone, the lawn, chickens and the deciduous tree zone.

I added some raised garden beds to the tropical zone when Covid-19 hit in March, because the front wasn’t ready and I wanted to grow vegetables, fast. They’ve been great. Once the front is established and the trees grow bigger I may remove them (the small one first), but they’ll stay for another year or so at least.

Behind the veggie beds are a banana, a papaya, an ice cream bean (which is a nitrogen fixer), an orange berry and a macadamia. Plus two Chilean guavas and a lemon verbena, which are more shrubs than trees – and four pineapple plants.

The macadamia is planted in the far (west) corner and will be a shade tree as it grows, protecting the rest of the garden from the brutal afternoon summer sun.

As the trees get bigger I’ll probably remove the hedge too, to give them more space.

There is a lawn zone because I don’t live by myself and others like the lawn. One of the reasons I moved was to give Hans the greyhound more space, so I can’t really take it all away from him!

I’ve planted more deciduous trees closer to the house ( a mulberry and a fig), as they get less sun in winter due to shading from the building.

I’ve added a passionfruit to act as a screen – it’s not deciduous but it’s fast growing, and so it can climb high (and the top of the trellis is in full sun).

Since I planted the passion fruit (in July) it’s barely grown – in fact, it’s shrunk…, but with the warmer weather I’ve spotted new shoots, so I’m hoping it’s going to cover the frame pretty soon.

The screen is to hide the washing line (and protect the clothes from bleaching in summer!) and keep some sun off of the building. This helps keep the inside of the house cool, and reduces the need for cooling in summer.

(The tree in the foreground is a lime; there’s also a lemon next to it.)

Once I’ve got the reticulation in, I can start to think about layers. (Because there will be a lot of digging to install it, I didn’t want to plant too much and have to disturb all the roots.)

When people talk about permaculture they often talk about food forests, which is a low maintenance system of food production based on woodland ecosystems that incorporate food trees, shrubs and perennial vegetables. Food forests can be divided into a number of layers:

  • The canopy: the tallest trees. The fiddlewood tree on the front verge is a canopy tree, and my neighbour’s avocado (which is the biggest avocado tree you’ve ever seen, and helps shade the garden from the afternoon summer sun. Eventually the macadamia, ice-cream bean and mulberry will be canopy trees.)
  • Understory layer: trees that flourish under dappled light.
  • Shrub layer: woody perennials such as berries. The two Chiliean guavas and lemon verbena are part of this layer.
  • Herbaceous layer: annuals like flowers and herbs.
  • Groundcover: plants that cover the bare mulch. Sweet potato is a great one, and there are plenty of green manures.
  • Rhizosphere: root layers. Sweet potato are part of this layer as are ginger, turmeric and galangal, regular potatoes, Jerusalem artichokes.
  • Vertical layer: climbers or vines.

I don’t have too many plans for the different layers yet, as I’m still focused on the canopy and understory layers. As these grow, I’ll start to add things underneath.

The best time to plant new trees is early autumn, so most of my planting will need to wait another few months. In the meantime I can still grow vegetables, and ensure the compost bins are cranking. Always something to do!

Now I’d love to hear from you! Are you investing more time in the garden (or allotment, or community patch) right now? What are you growing? What has been your biggest challenge? Any questions about my garden? Any other thoughts? Let me know in the comments below!