Santas of Excessive Consumption in Norwich & London

Sub­ver­sive Singing San­tas Spread Sea­son­al San­i­ty

15.12.2007
Today, on one of the busiest shop­ping days of the year, activists from Nor­wich Ris­ing Tide dressed up as San­tas and vis­it­ed Chapelfield Mall to sing a dif­fer­ent tune to the usu­al buy, buy, buy mad­ness of the hol­i­day sea­son.

Bear­ing a fes­tive ban­ner read­ing Lap­land is Melt­ing and singing sub­vert­ed Christ­mas car­ols (Wel­come to Con­sumer Won­der­land, Oh Lit­tle Town of Chapelfield, etc.), the San­tas set up out­side the tem­ple to con­sump­tion that is Chapelfield Mall.

Many stressed-out shop­pers broke into smiles of recog­ni­tion as the lyrics reached their ears: ‘Hit the malls with wads of mon­ey fa la la la / Breath­ing air that’s stale and ster­ile fa la la la’ or ‘To some folks Christ­mas means a time for gath­er­ing with friends / But TV says it’s time for pricey gifts and self­ish ends’. Mall secu­ri­ty how­ev­er were not so pleased with the ‘please don’t shop here’ tunes, and the San­tas were moved on – but not before send­ing a streak of san­i­ty through con­sumer won­der­land.

The San­tas’ car­ols also high­light­ed the fact that binge con­sump­tion at Christ­mas-time is direct­ly linked to cli­mate change (‘This shop­ping toil is wast­ing oil’). Hol­i­day food, trav­el, lights, and gifts pro­duce on aver­age 650 kg of CO2 emis­sions per indi­vid­ual. In total, that’s 5.5% of the year­ly car­bon foot­print of the UK.

‘Every gift that’s pro­duced, trans­port­ed, bought, used, and thrown away uses up ener­gy that we don’t have, and cre­ates emis­sions that our cli­mate can’t han­dle. And if that prod­uct is made of plas­tic (like all those cheap toys that will be bro­ken or dis­card­ed in a week’s time), then it’s lit­er­al­ly made of oil’, said one San­ta from Nor­wich Ris­ing Tide.

Said anoth­er: ‘Us San­tas aren’t sug­gest­ing you don’t give your loved ones presents this year. But why not make one or two of them, trade with friends, or buy local­ly. Think about the prod­ucts you’re buy­ing – what they’re made of, where they came from, how they got from there to here… and whether they’re actu­al­ly going to make some­one any hap­pi­er.’

norwich@risingtide.org.uk
http://www.risingtide.org.uk/norwich

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San­tas of Exces­sive Con­sump­tion on Oxford Street

San­tas singing alter­na­tive car­ols on Oxford street in Lon­don today (15 Decem­ber).

Today, on the last big shop­ping week­end of the year, LRT went to Oxford street to sing alter­na­tive car­ols for all the love­ly boys and girls who were busy rac­ing around in a rush to spend.

Dressed as San­tas and Elves, we brought not only cheer, but some hope too, as we got loads of pos­i­tive feed­back. The San­tas sang for about two hours.

Christ­mas Car­ols (thanks to The Cen­ter for a New Amer­i­can Dream)

1
Con­sumer Won­der­land
(To the tune of Win­ter Won­der­land, lyrics by Eri­ca Avery)

The TV’s on / are you watch­ing?
Anoth­er prod­uct / that they’re hawk­ing
one more thing you need
to make life com­plete
Wel­come to Con­sumer Won­der­land

In the stores / you will hear it
“Pricey gifts / show hol­i­day spir­it”
That’s what they call it
to get to your wal­let
Wel­come to Con­sumer Won­der­land

At the mall we can go out shop­ping
and buy lots of stuff we can’t afford
we’ll have lots of fun with our new toys
until we real­ize that we’re still bored
When you shop / ain’t it thrilling
until / you get the billing
the mon­ey you still owe the stuff broke long ago
Wel­come to Con­sumer Won­der­land

2
Uh Oh We’re In The Red, Dear

(To the tune of Rudolph the red-nose rein­deer)

Uh oh we’re in the red, dear
On our cred­it card it shows
Christ­mas is almost over
But the deb­it line still grows
Shop­ping like San­ta’s zom­bies
Sent our bud­get down in flames
But all our Christ­mas spir­it
Helped the giant retail chains

I’m so fog­gy Christ­mas Eve
Won­der­ing how we’ll pay
Christ­mas does­n’t seem so bright
When our finances are tight

So here’s a plan for next year
Let’s for­get the shop­ping spree
Let’s give a gift of love, so
All our Christ­mas gifts are free

3
God Rest Ye Mer­ry Gen­tle­men

Slow down ye fran­tic shop­pers for there’s some­thing we must say
If you would spare a moment all the stores would go away
Big busi­ness has been telling us what Christ­mas means today

Now it’s time we decid­ed for our­selves, for our­selves
Yes it’s time we decid­ed for our­selves.

To some folks Christ­mas means a time for gath­er­ing with friends
And ene­mies might take it as a time to make amends
But TV says it’s time for pricey gifts and self­ish ends

Now it’s time we decid­ed for our­selves, for our­selves
Yes it’s time we decid­ed for our­selves.

Some peo­ple feel that Christ­mas is when Jesus makes a call
For oth­ers it’s a time to stress good will and peace to all
But adver­tis­ers tell us it means San­ta’s at the mall

Now it’s time we decid­ed for our­selves, for our­selves
Yes it’s time we decid­ed for our­selves.

4
Jin­gle All The Way
To the tune of Jin­gle Bells

Cho­rus:
Prof­its here, prof­its there,
prof­its every­where
Christ­mas time is fun­ny
we smell mon­ey in the air
Adver­tise, glam­or­ize,
fool you with a flair.
Let’s make sure that Christ­mas
is a busi­nesslike affair.

You’re eat­ing up our lies and dash­ing to the stores
Then all our prices rise and how the mon­ey pours
If we don’t keep you drugged and watch­ing your TV
You might see the hypocrisy
then where would busi­ness be?

Cho­rus

We’ll tell you how to think and tell you what to try
What to eat and drink and how to live and die
And if our plan suc­ceeds, when Christ­mas-time is nigh
Instead of seek­ing love and peace you’ll hunt for gifts to buy

Cho­rus

5
To the tune of Lit­tle Town of Beth­le­hem

Oh gen­tle folk of Lon­don Town
Think how they feed us lies
All through the streets the shops com­pete
Urg­ing us to buy and buy
Whilst else­where explodeth
Anoth­er bomb tonight
As inno­cents fall
Were in the shop­ping mall
This doesn’t quite seem right.

Spend all our cash, we’re feel­ing flash
As the queues grow and grow
Buy­ing lux­u­ry goods and loads of food
for folks we hard­ly know
Whilst in so many places
The peo­ple starve and die
As I carve my bird
It’s quite absurd
We buy into this lie

Then at new year the sales appear
And everything’s reduced
In store we see new prod­uct lines
And know that we’ve been duped
We wish that we had wait­ed
Until now to buy
The model’s been updat­ed
It makes us want to cry.

6
To the tune of Once in Roy­al David’s City

Once in dirty Lon­don City
Stood a huge big fuck off shop
Where they sold their goods aplen­ty
And the shop­ping did not stop
Brand­ed bags all over­flow­ing
All their sav­ings quick­ly going
Thus con­sumerism wild
Yule’s cheer mes­sage has defiled
Thus con­sumerism wild
Yule’s cheer mes­sage has defiled

7
To the tune of Silent Night

Silent night holy night
Bombs go boom,Soldiers fight
Round the stores the suck­ers trawl
Buy­ing crap for one and all
Shop until you drop
Shop until you drop

8
To the tune of Oh Come All Ye Faith­ful

Oh come all ye shop­pers
Bur­dened and despon­dent
Come all ye fol­low­ers of ma-a-mon
Come and buy things
Spark­ly and redun­dant

Oh come let us ignore it
Oh come let us deplore it
Oh come let us abhore it
Mon­ey and greed.

Ring tills with prof­it
Ring in exploita­tion
Ring all ye reg­is­ters of cap­i­tal­ism
Glo­ry to prof­it
At it’s high­est

Oh come let us ignore it
Oh come let us deplore it
Oh come let us abhore it
Mon­ey and greed.

9
To the tune of Away in a Manger

Away in a sweat­shop
A pit­tance for pay
Work under age chil­dren
With no time to play
Mak­ing train­ers and T‑shirts
And lux­u­ry goods
Threat­ened with vio­lence
And giv­en no food

The stars in the media
Encour­age our greed
They’re mak­ing us want things
We don’t real­ly need
Still wast­ing resources
And scram­bling our brains
We’re using up car­bon
With lit­tle to gain.

10
To the tune of “Frosty the Snow­man”

Cheney the oil man
Was a jol­ly hap­py crook
With a secret past and alot of cash from cook­ing up the books
Cheney the oil man
Was a greedy guy I’m told
Because he want­ed Hal­libur­ton to buy up all the oil
There must have been some mag­ic in that pace­mak­er he wore
Because some­how his heart could han­dle the vio­lence and the gore
Thumpi­ty Thump Thump Thumpi­ty Thump Thump Look at Cheney toil
Thumpi­ty Thump Thump Thumpi­ty Thump Thump Over fields of oil.
Cheney the oil man
got his dream come true
He stole 87 Bil­lion from me and you.

11
To the tune of “Joy to the World”

Joy to the World the Love has come
To Lib­er­ate us all.
The work­ers all are poor
From shop­ping at these stores
Let heav­en and nature sing,
Let heav­en and nature sing,
And stop and stop shop­ping.
Joy to the World the Love has come
To Lib­er­ate us all
No one can afford
This birth­day for Lord
Lets join togeth­er and sing
Lets join togeth­er and sing
And stop and stop shop­ping

info@londonrisingtide.org
http://londonrisingtide.org.uk