December 2008

December went well. I concentrated on buying less wasteful presents for everyone. As much as possible I re-used gift bags and made my own cloth bags to wrap gifts in. That was an idea I got from my mom. She had some extra bags so I supplemented the ones I made with some she gave me.

Ethical dilemma: What if someone does not buy new clothes for me? What if they are giving me hand-me-downs? Are those acceptable? When this question came up I did not really have a purpose or focus for the project. My thoughts on this are:

1) If the point of the project is not to consume (i.e. buy) anything, then hand-me-downs that are otherwise being thrown away are okay. It would help me refrain from buying things even longer.

2) If the point of the project is to demonstrate that I already have enough, and in fact almost everyone does, then adding anything to my wardrobe, no matter how it is acquired, would not be okay.

3) If the point of the project is to be more sustainable and environmental then keeping things out of a landfill would be okay.

This issue arose with a visit from my in-laws. My mother-in-law has taken shopping to a new and almost frightening level. She locates things she likes and if they are not priced to her liking she waits. Like a panther stalking its prey. She knows when her favorite stores mark items down and she makes friends with the clerks. She will return to a store several times to keep her eye on something she likes. When it gets cheap enough she buys it and the cycle begins with some other helpless piece of clothing or accessory.

However, since this is one of her regular pass times, she has ended up with a massive amount of very well priced clothing. It is mostly nice, designer stuff. Periodically she reviews her wardrobe and decides she no longer needs or wants some of the items. If she believes they will fit me and that I would like them, she brings them down when she visits. Sometimes things will still have the tags on them. None the less, she is getting rid of this clothing and did not purchase it intending to give it to me. I have been wearing her hand-me-downs for most of my marriage and am fine with it. But - does this fit in with the project??

I had originally said if someone violated the project rules (like if my husband went out and bought me a sweater) I would graciously accept the item and put it away until the project was over. That was so that I could not cheat and hint around that I wanted something and hope someone would buy it for me. I thought about accepting the hand-me-downs and putting them away until after the project.

In the end I decided to sort through them judiciously and to keep things that would fill a need in my wardrobe if one existed. Meaning, I would not keep any black t-shirts since I already had two. I could keep something if it fit very well and I did not already have something similar. In addition, if I kept something I had to get rid of something (via a thriftstore) similar. Keep a t-shirt, get rid of a t-shirt.

I am not sure this was not a cop-out, but I was able to find several nice things that fit me well and that I could wear to work. Also, there was some exercise clothes and I was unsure what I was going to do about sports bras.