How a modular, reusable and do-it-yourself Christmas tree decoration changes your mind

Some of us are preparing for Christmas now. And even though it is just a Christian tradition, I would argue that rather sooner than later all religions, and in general all people around the world, have to prepare for it - at least for its consequences.

What I mean by that? If you look into statistics, Christmas spendings (2008-18) and holiday retail sales (2000-18) are continuously growing. So does the amount of stuff we purchase: an even bigger TV, an useless gadget, another unwanted whatsoever... This kind of unconscious consumption comes with a problem!

Most items contain conventional plastics, which utilise fossil oil and other conventional derivatives of long-time, underground hidden resources. Digging them out opens a carbon storage that was created millions of years ago and will eventually (at least on mankinds time-horizon) add climate gases to our atmosphere due to its degradation (e.g. by burning or natural decay). On top of that the production of all items need huge amounts of energy which is generally based on the burning of fossil fuels (e.g. coal) causing more and more carbon to be released and accelerating climate change. You don't have to look far to the side in order to notice significant harm to other spheres of the environment: plastic waste destroying ocean habitats and irritating living ecosystems, land degradation from extraction and fill-ups, an quantity-favouring economy enslaving our planet.

So what can we do about it? Economies are adjusting energy systems and shifting from fossils to renewables. More and more governments are banning single use plastics. And slowly consumption behaviour is changing to an more eco-friendly approach by collaboratively using instead of owning, up- and down-cycling and recycling stuff.

In line with those thoughts I would like to present you a modular, reusable and do-it-yourself Christmas tree decoration which will be a present to my friends and family this year. The little angels, elves and snowmen subtly tell a story on how small changes to our routines can have a drastic impact. Instead of plastics the figures are made of wood and iron. Instead of fragile, short-living styles they are designed in a modular way and thus adjustable every year. Instead of sophisticated production processes the components can be bought in the local tool market and "manufactured" by peoples own hands.

With the following pictures and the outcome of my little experiment I hope some of you feel inspired to start acting and creating new approaches and systems that can support the big transition we need to encourage. In this spirit, "do what you can't".