Aromatic, be-tinseled trees. Twinkling lights.

Gingerbread houses, Jolly Old Saint Nick and, of course, overcrowded malls rife with screaming children, cart jams and mile-long lines.

One Red Deer minister is trying to spread the world that there’s more to Christmas than all that.

Minister Linda Ervin, at Sunnybrook United Church, has put the kibosh on buying Christmas presents this year, and she’s hoping others will follow her example.

“What we’re trying to do is say ‘Let’s stop and reflect on what we’re doing with all our money.’ Do we really need everything we’re spending our money on? Does it give meaning to our life?” she said.

Ervin’s joined a growing movement of people who are calling for sober second thoughts about Christmas spending.

It started with Buy Nothing Day, an international day of protest against consumerism created by Vancouver artist Ted Dave and promoted heavily by activist magazine Adbusters.

Buy Nothing Day began in 1992 as a grassroots protest in September, but it was moved by organizers in 1997 to “Black Friday,” the Friday after Thanksgiving in the U.S. and one of the busiest shopping days in the country.

As the holiday slowly gained popularity, other movements sprung up, most notably Buy Nothing Christmas.

Although families had sporadically rejected Christmas shopping and presents before, it wasn’t until 2001 that a group of Canadian Mennonites gave the movement a name and a website, which describes the movement as “a prophetic ‘no’ to the patterns of over-consumption of middle-class North Americans.”

Ervin said all of it made sense to her. She delivered a Nov. 30 sermon that included presentations on Buy Nothing Day, and decided to lead by example.

Instead of spending hours in the malls and hundreds on presents, she’s doing an alternative Christmas this year­— sponsoring the son of another minister in Zambia so he can go to University.

Ervin, who took over at Sunnybrook six months ago, said she was impressed to see that so many of her congregation have already taken steps towards community development and charitable work.

Many of her own congregation have alternative Christmas projects of their own and already donate to local shelters and soup kitchens.

One such parishioner is Heather Christenson, who asked family members to make donations to a variety of charities, including Engineers Without Borders, World Vision Canada and Red Deer’s People’s Place instead of buying her gifts this year.

“Everybody is fairly aware of donating things, but part of my thought is that when you give somebody a donation, you’re saying ‘Aren’t I good for donating in your name?’ You should say to people, if you feel strongly about donations, ‘No I don’t want anything, donate something in my name,’” she said.

Ervin said the message is especially timely given the economic troubles looming on the horizon, and doesn’t believe holiday spending will do anything to fix the economy.

“I don’t think our spending is going to change the economic downfall. I think we can spend responsibly and wisely in this downturn, support local producers and maybe try spending time with each other instead of money on each other,” she said.

Contact Paige Aarhus

at paarhus@reddeeradvocate.com