It isn’t a secret that we live in a consumerist culture. We are ravenous when it comes to acquiring. Perhaps on some levels, we don’t even care what we are consuming as long as it is “new.” But this appetite is anything but new, it’s been years in the making, and carefully crafted by companies who want your time and your money. The world around us is curated to make us desire more. Commercials, billboards, storefronts, Instagram #ad #sponsored posts, YouTube fashion bloggers hauling the latest and greatest clothing items, all of these things bombard us daily, and a lot of the time we don’t even notice. It’s become second nature to walk around in a snow globe of advertising. While the companies producing these adverts are staying warm with all of our hard-earned money, we are left out in the cold, penniless, and still feeling inadequate. This isn’t about pointing fingers, or us versus them, it’s about looking at ourselves and our habits and trying to understand why it’s so easy to get caught up in the storm. According to Red Crow Marketing Inc. the average American encounters up to 4,000 advertisements a day, and that figure is from 2015. There is a such thing as retail therapy. Numerous psychological studies have been conducted and found direct correlations in shopping and mood. It is common to want new thing when we are feeling depressed, or to want to splurge when we get good news. But just because these actions are common, they are not necessarily healthy. In my opinion, shopping in order to suppress or prolong feelings is detrimental to our physical and mental health.
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Ahhh Christmas, my favorite holiday of all time. Something about this time of the year just feels magical. I think it has a lot to do with growing up with a mother who loved making the holidays special for my sister and myself. I have so many memories of anxiously waiting for my dad to lug all of the overloaded Christmas totes out of the basement and up into the living room. With fingers covered in glitter, and stray pieces of tinsel strewn about the room, my mom, my sister, and I would dig out all of our favorite holiday decorations, and admire them as if we were seeing them for the very first time.
Mariah Carey would serenade our Christmas decorating sessions, and we would assault the eardrums of everyone within a fifty mile radius attempting to recreate her famous falsetto. This feeling of togetherness and tradition is something that I have held onto well into adulthood, even as I embark on creating my own holiday traditions. I've always enjoyed DIY projects; I think I have the opposite of ADHD, I can channel my attention far too intently into projects, and come out the other side completely confused as to how I just spent 14 hours making pompom garlands (guilty of this literally two weeks ago). There is a sense of accomplishment that comes from creating something yourself. To decorate the very first Christmas tree of my own, I wanted to make the majority of the ornaments. I love minimal Scandinavian style, and I think these simple clay holiday ornaments add a touch of class and personalization to any tree. These ornaments are simple to make, relatively inexpensive, and they are perfect to do with a group of friends or with your children. |
Lindsey. 26. Writer. Pun Maker. Stargazer.
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