The Year without a Purchase by Scott Dannemiller

Author:Scott Dannemiller
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780664260682
Publisher: Westminster John Knox Press

Chapter Twenty

Good-Bye Nana Claus

Let all that you do be done in love.

(1 Corinthians 16:14)

As time passes, we feel a steady change coming over us. While the pull is still there, stuff has far less of a hold on us than it did before we started. For example, our email has been trimmed of temptation. Whereas the previous version of our inboxes looked like an out-of-control, multicolored Bozo the clown wig, with crazy ads spilling over every which way, they are now reduced to more of a mullet, with your first impression being clean and functional and only a few ne’er-do-wells creeping in the back door for a hedonistic romp through materialism.

The same is true of other media. When we bring in the mail from the mailbox, our routine is now to dump all incoming catalogs and discount offers straight into the recycle bin. I have found that limiting my exposure to extra stuff has reduced my feelings of irrational envy, where I would silently covet the goods owned by the fake families found in advertisements. The ones with children selected for their rare ability to remain still and cooperative, and spouses that look like mannequins come to life, with six-pack abs and gleaming teeth.

We rarely ever bought things out of catalogs, but they would subconsciously imprint us with an image of something we wanted, so when we were out of the house and found ourselves with a few minutes of free time, we might just pop into a store and look for a cheap knock-off of something we had seen a month ago in an airbrushed ad. But now we are spending far less time in and around stores. Some places we used to visit once every week or two we now treat like a toxic ex-girlfriend. Don’t call her. Don’t text her. Don’t chat with any of her close friends. On the rare occasion we do bump into this jilted lover by accident, we don’t make eye contact or acknowledge she exists. We simply put on the blinders, enter the store, grab whatever necessity we came for, and quickly exit, hoping she’s intensely jealous now that she sees how much better off we are without her.

This feeling of freedom is evident both physically and emotionally. The seven pounds I added during the spring have now melted away. I am personally learning to manage the cravings for consumption and find a proper outlet. It turns out the endorphin rush of a half-hour on a treadmill has more lasting benefits than the pleasure rush of eating a half-gallon of Rocky Road followed by a couple of Eggo waffles.

While we feel the changes in ourselves, we are wondering if our experiment is changing anyone else. Take my mom, for instance, otherwise known as “Nana” to our kids.

Nana is an incredible force in our family. If you need a reference point, she was created in a grandma lab somewhere by crossing the DNA of Mary Poppins, Jack Black, Julia Child, and Desmond Tutu. The woman has this intense, magical energy infused with culinary genius and a heart of gold.

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