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| Version | User | Scope of changes |
|---|---|---|
| Nov 14 2008, 12:21 PM EST | KarenWenell | 1 word added, 1 word deleted |
| Nov 14 2008, 12:09 PM EST | KarenWenell | 2 words added, 1 word deleted |
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Remembering Christmas One of the challenges we quickly faced with the workshop event in July was that the weather (even for Glasgow) was bright and fine, and very Summery. So the task of the first meeting was to get everyone 'warmed up' for thinking about Christmas itself. In this way, we also faced one of the central issues of the project - that in order to think about how to understand the ethical decisions of Christmas we need a view to the past and the traditions and ideas that have shaped Christmas celebration. We thought about what traditions we remember from our own personal recent and more distant past, and we asked the question: How can we develop new traditions which overlay (but do not supplant) existing layers of tradition?
Nicholas Oddy's presentation was a kick starter for the discussion, with his consideration of Victoriana, both authentic and retro. In one example, a 1940s box tin for biscuitsbiscuits, which was intended to be sent back to the company and refilled, struck a chord with the current climate for the group – a kind of eco-friendly consumerism which we might like to implement today! This and other examples brought to light the disposable nature of many of the items we use for Christmas, like wrapping paper, cellotape, and even Christmas cards, which became standardized, nationally and internationally, for the main advantage, one could say, of the post office…
We also talked about nostalgia, and how ‘bygone’ commercial structures and traditions of the past can seem more attractive than what we experience in the present. We can imagine that we look back to a glorious non-commercial past, even if this is historically inaccurate. However, there could be something positive in nostalgia if it allows to resist what we don’t want from the past in order to imagine a different future.
The second presentation in this session was Chris Diamond’s
