Four things I can’t live without: tweezers; the smell of cumin in my kitchen cupboard; my first coffee in the morning; my alone time from the moment I wake up to the moment I’ve gulped down that first coffee. If you speak to me during that time, I must kill you.
But I can live without candles, chocolates, soaps, vases, socks, lacy black doodads, herring fillets (that’s tough) and all the other gifts I received from well-meaning and generous friends for Christmas.
Ungrateful? Me? Never. I know each gift was lovingly chosen with my predilections in mind. But I’d happily give up these gifts to help provide African communities with life’s most basic needs such as clean water, adequate food and primary health care.
There are organisations that offer ways to do this. Ask your friends to donate money to them in lieu of gifts, so that it’s distributed where it’s needed. Regrettably these organisations often don’t send the information explaining how to do this until the week after you’ve graciously accepted your gifts.
We all have too many things we don’t need. We’ve ceased being patrons, passengers and patients and become customers, clients and consumers. Teenagers are now demanding Tiffany necklaces and sports shoes with teensy computer chips in the instep that display their heart rate and calculate how far they’ve run. Shoes smarter than the people wearing them. I saw one screeching six-year-old with his little hands clamped around an expensive motorised war toy that would impress any military historian.
Don’t insult small boys with a box of plastic toy soldiers. Today’s toy soldiers are decked out in authentic-looking uniforms, weapons and vehicles. If the manufacturers want reality then why not market a range of amputee toy soldiers with post-traumatic stress disorder?
The logic is, sell a child an action figure and he or she will come back to get the command post, Jeep, sandbags, machineguns, grenades, and enemy soldiers designed to fit the action figure and the world it inhabits. Are you feeling queasy or is it just me?
I grew up in my parents’ delicatessen. I had no toys. I played with food. I did a makeover on Hungarian salami. I wrapped a scrap of tulle around the middle of the salami as a skirt; I used olives attached with toothpicks for breasts and two small pickled cucumbers for arms. The salami became my favourite ever toy, Magda – Barbie’s Hungarian cousin.
Forget expensive toys for kids, why not give them items that fit easily within your budget and test their imaginations?
Visit an appliance shop and bring home a huge empty cardboard box. The range of shapes and sizes of boxes available almost anywhere for nothing is incredible. The box can become a castle, a piece of furniture, a bus (if you cut out windows and add cardboard wheels made out of take-away pizza containers) or a hiding place for grown ups when they’re having an anxiety attack.
And what can’t you do with a stick? A stick can be a poker, a digger, a wand and a lure for creepy-crawly wormy things to be examined at close range without touching. Sure, sticks break but they’re biodegradable. Chuck it and find another one.
The most desirable toy has to be the cardboard tube, free with every paper towel, toilet roll and wrapping paper. It’s easily transformed into a periscope, binoculars, a sword or something to belt each other with that doesn’t hurt – unless you really want it to.
» Rachel Berger is one of Australia’s most highly regarded, adept, and adaptive comedic talents, working variously as a comedian, broadcaster, novelist, columnist, agitator and television ?entertainer.
» www.rachelberger.com
The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily represent the views of The Weekly Review.