A very ethical Christmas

Here’s another one, part of an occasional series in these parts, of people from the newspapers who are, for often undefinable reasons, really, really annoying. Not always undefinable, mind.

This is from a feature in the Guardian’s weekend magazine about what people got their kids for Christmas. First they speak to the parent, then to the kid. It takes a suspension of disbelief to accept that Matilda is a real person and was not instead created by Viz magazine in one of its more spiteful moments. If there is hope for the world, it surely lies with Dimitri. I have the suspicion that when he unwraps his cooking class, he might well punch mum, in a sustainable way.

Matilda Lee, Dimitri’s mother Being ethical informs my whole worldview. I’m an editor at the Ecologist, I’ve written a book on ethical fashion, we have homemade decorations, buy an ethical tree, eat locally sourced, organic food. When the children were little, it was easy to buy them green gifts, but now Dimitri’s six, it’s more difficult. He watches TV, he sees adverts, all his friends talk about what they’re getting for Christmas. He wants stuff. This year, as well as a stocking full of arts and crafts and a satsuma, and an adopted snow leopard from WWF, I’m afraid he got a Nintendo DS. I am troubled by how it was made, by whom, and what’s going to happen to it when, inevitably, he finds it uninteresting. Also, I worry about the impact it’ll have on him. We get him outside as much as possible, and the last thing he needs is something to keep him inside focused on a screen. We’re in the years when our kids are into the idea of presents under the tree.