All I want for Xmas is the fall of civilization as we know it
Better get while the gettin’ is good
Jim Sanders

Many people might assume that my input to a holiday gift issue of Uptown would be a rant on how the holiday season is corrupted by a culture of overconsumption.

People probably expect me to suggest we all just make our own gifts out of recycled materials, or that spending quality time with friends and family is the best gift of all.

I might have thought these things in the past, but not now. This Christmas calls for direct shopping action, no holds barred. We need to buy more things this holiday than ever before. If you were thinking of buying your darling an iPod, you need to do the right thing and buy him 10. Instead of a stocking, fill a hockey bag, and hang it over the fireplace. This year I say, “Go big or go home!”

Let me explain myself.

Like everyone else, I have lived most of my life as part of the mass delusion of modern civilization. We’re born, we go to school, we work, we die and along the way we shop , especially in December.

It’s the shopping that’s the problem. We live in a society that worships the gods of the mall. Even though our consumption habit is sucking the life out of the planet, ensuring the inevitable demise of modern civilization, we still shop away, always coveting the newest high-tech gadget or designer jeans.

Global resource wars wreak havoc everywhere; pollution is giving everyone cancer, and yet we still cherish our BlackBerrys and plastic throw-away thingamajigs. We refuse to see how it’s all connected. We refuse to change.

Politicians do nothing about it either. We all just go along as if nothing’s wrong, and the few who try to do something are simply ignored.

So what’s the point of trying to tell people to stop buying so much crap? This moving train of hypercapitalism is stopping for nobody. So we might as well strap ourselves in and go full speed ahead. With the right kind of collective effort, we could use this Christmas to consume modern civilization right into oblivion. With the right dedication, we could put such stress on the world’s resources that societies would implode. If we all run up as much debt and credit as possible by buying gifts, we could all declare bankruptcy en masse and add to the demise of our economies. Once the system has ground to a halt and our economy’s crashed, then we can all learn together how to be sustainable and live within our means.

So don’t feel guilty this Christmas for buying lots of gifts. Do Mother Earth a favour, and consume with gusto. Buy your family multiple around-the-world vacation packages, or pick up a pair of 40-foot Winnebagos for your teenagers. Get a lifetime’s supply of bottled water for all the relatives. The more plastic, the more oil, the more rare metals, the better. Lets see how fast we can use it all up.

This Christmas, let’s push civilization over the edge once and for all.

Jim Sanders is a local documentary filmmaker and co-founder of Dada World Data Productions.