The simple life

Shelley Jo Isaak has one simple rule for Christmas decorations - if it doesn't fit in one box, it has to go.

Shelley Jo Isaak has one simple rule for Christmas decorations - if it doesn't fit in one box, it has to go.

It was one of many concessions that Isaak made when she decided a few years ago that possessions were not going to control her life.

"Anything I don't use or anything I don't cherish, is gone," she said.

Cutting back on current possessions is one way to challenge the pressure to purchase felt by everyone during the holidays - especially today, as Americans stream through malls and box stores on one of the busiest shopping days of the year.

Isaak's decorating scheme for her Kalispell home - centered on perishable Christmas staples such as fruits, cookies and candy - opposes another Christmas trend as displays grow increasingly elaborate and, in some communities, competitive.

Isaak, who teaches education classes at Flathead Valley Community College, is not alone in fighting the pressure to super-size the holidays.

In September, Jo Borowski shared her wish for a simpler Christmas with her worship ministry team at First Presbyterian Church in Kalispell. The idea resonated with the committee and they planned an Advent series - "The Simply Abundant Life" - addressing concepts of simplicity, frugality, sustainability, generosity and justice.

"We do a lot of things to ourselves over the holidays to make ourselves crazy," Borowski said. "I hope this will help all of us not do that, to have the time to enjoy the season and do the things that are important."

During the series, which begins in this Sunday's morning worship and runs through Christmas day, the Rev. Glenn Burfeind also wants to help people look outside the culture of materialism and embrace the spirituality of the holidays.

"In the story of Jesus' birth and in his ministry and throughout his life, Jesus' message was countercultural," Burfeind said. "As life gets hectic, we should pause and reflect upon the abundant gifts that bring us more meaning and purpose in life."

The church also is taking a practical approach to alleviating holiday stress. The sanctuary Christmas decorations are being toned down this year, Burfeind said, to match the spirit of the series and to give those in charge of decorating one less thing to worry about this holiday season.

Burfeind will also address the work the church does for those he said Jesus came to help - the poor and the outcast.

"I want to affirm what the congregation is already doing - serving meals at the Samaritan House, giving money to mission support - to focus on things we are doing and inspire them to keep following the path they're taking," he said. One of the church's holiday-specific projects involves making up food boxes for about 30 families in the community.

Some families have decided that charitable giving is a worthwhile alternative to buying presents. Borowski said she and her husband are not exchanging Christmas gifts, but giving a set amount of money to a charity. On Christmas morning they will reveal their plans for their portion of the money.

"That will be our Christmas for each other," she said. "We don't really need to spend money on each other, we've done an over-abundance of that. We don't need anything."

Isaak said her family gives money - usually to Heifer International, in friends' or family members' names - and sends a card with a family photo telling them of the gift.

"The charitable donations have been well received," she said. "Our 90-year-old grandmas don't usually need more things."

She has also cut down on the Christmas gift accumulation by asking that family members only give her children one "high-quality toy vs. a whole box of plastic," Isaak said.

"I was kind of worried that would upset people at first, but I've found that the people who like to shop had more fun finding that perfect toy than running out and buying a bunch of things."

And her children, Juniper Jo, 3, and Ren Willow, 6 months, are not deprived, Isaak said.

"As our children get gifts, we want them to donate something they have to kids who don't have any," she said. "Stuff comes in, stuff goes out. My 3-year-old once said, 'Mommy, I don't love this anymore. We can give this to someone who will."

A 2005 poll commissioned by the Center for a New American Dream, an organization dedicated to helping Americans consume responsibly, found that nearly three in five Americans acquired credit card debt last year during the holiday season. Nearly one-third say it took them more than three months to pay off the debt, while 14 percent said they were still paying that same debt off as the new holiday season was approaching.

The same poll found that Americans are worried about the values lost to holiday shopping binges. More than three in four Americans wish that the December holidays were less materialistic and 87 percent said the holidays should be more about family and caring for others rather than giving and receiving gifts.

In his 1998 book "Hundred Dollar Holiday: The Case for a More Joyful Christmas," Bill McKibben addresses these statistics by making the case that spending less money during the holiday season frees people to spend more time with family, to find quiet moments during the season and to discover spiritual meaning.

"It started out, long before the book, as a project within the Methodist church in our area," McKibben wrote in an e-mail from Vermont. "A few friends and I were very holier-than-thou about what an environmental waste Christmas was. But we quickly figured out that the reason $100 holidays worked for us, and for many others, was because it made Christmas a lot more fun."

He sees a growing number of people changing their attitudes toward the holiday season and says that, in his experience, people usually are happy to surrender the traditions that lead to mountains of presents under the tree.

"I've never heard of anyone who minded once they tried it," he wrote. "But it's hard to start, because of the fear of overturning convention, giving offense."

Isaak's tips for holiday simplification include money-saving ideas such as making gifts and packing them in homemade containers, "instead of a giant box with wrapping paper."

"I make gifts from my kitchen and from my herb garden," she said. "People appreciate it so much more than another set of candleholders."

And homemade gifts aren't the time-consuming chore she first expected them to be, Isaak said.

"I was worried it might not be a simplifying thing, but it's not a burden at all," she said. "I keep it in mind over the year; as I make something, I keep gift-giving in mind. It's more of a reward giving and receiving."

Reporter Heidi Gaiser may be reached at 758-4431 or by e-mail at hgaiser@dailyinterlake.com