Dear followthethings.com shopper

We have been doing some Christmas ‘shopping’ (see definitions 11 and 12 of this glorious verb here) and have some recommendations for you: 3 unmissable Christmas movies and a Christmas list.

If you have one of our shopocalypse bags, please take it to town with you this month, and send us photos of its contents. Its ladybirds are Santa’s little helpers. They know everything about world trade.

Festive feelings

Ian et al.

Our Christmas movies

a) Xmas unwrapped (2014)

Where’s this from? See here.

b) What would Jesus buy (2007)

c) Santa’s workshop: inside China’s slave labour toy factories (2004 – see its followthethings.com page)

Our Christmas list

Shopping guides

Anon (2023) Your ultimate guide to an ethical christmas. Ethical Consumer 24 November

Supply chain news

Anon (2016) Why billions of dollars of goods are stuck at sea. The Economist 21 September

Begum, T. (2023) Woman making Christmas jumpers for UK turns to sex work to pay bills. The guardian 23 December

Chamberlain, G. (2016) The grim truth of Chinese factories producing the west’s Christmas toys. The Guardian 4 December

Farrer, M. (2022) Zero-Covid policy is costing China its role as the world’s workshop. The guardian 3 December

Gonçalves, M. (2023) Retailers fear Christmas sales will be impacted by supply chain disruption. The Grocer 17 November

Howells, R. (2016) Lost at Sea – Will I Get Christmas Presents This Year? Huffington Post 22 September

Hsu, T. & Kisby, R. (2017) 1,000 Miles, Four Families, One Christmas Tree. New York Times 15 December

Maughan, T. (2014) Your Christmas stuff is likely from Yiwu, a small town in China. BBC Future, 18 December

Robson, S. & Ward, A. (2012) The REAL Toy Story: Chinese factory workers forced to sleep among piles of doll parts as they churn out Christmas presents. Daily Mail 8 December

Sherwood, D. (2010) How your Christmas dinner has travelled 260,000 miles. Daily Mail 15 December

Urbina, I. (2007) Anarchists in the aisles? Stores provide a stage. New York Times 24 December

Wainright, O. (2014) Santa’s real workshop: the town in China that makes the world’s Christmas decorations. The Guardian 19 December 

NGO perspectives

Anon (2007) A Wal-Mart Christmas: Brought to you from a Sweatshop in China. Pittsburgh, PA: National Labour Committee in Support of Human and Worker Rights

Anon (2016) An Investigation into Four Toy Sweatshops. New York: China Labor Watch

Anon (2016) No Wonderland for workers: labour conditions at Disney’s supplier factories in China. Hong Kong: Students and Scholars Against Corporate Misbehaviour

Anon (2023) Festive fashion is no joke: £218 million worth of novelty clothes cast aside in the New Year. Oxford: Oxfam

Art & activist perspectives

Cook et al, I. (2017) What to do if you find a cry for help in your Christmas presents this year. The Conversation 22 December

Ginsburg, R. (nd) Santa Claus Army. Beautiful Trouble

Pinar (2013) Chinese Factory Workers Reveal the REAL Toy Story. mymodernmet.com 17 January

Sherman, J. (2018) The Christmas Snow Globe. followtheblog.org 12 December

Academic perspectives

Bozkurt, O. (2015) The punctuation of mundane jobs with extreme work: Christmas at the supermarket deli counter. Organization 22(4), 476-492

Farbotko, C. & Head, L. (2013) Gifts, sustainable consumption and giving up green anxieties at Christmas. Geoforum 50, 88–96

Hancock, P. & Rehn, A. (2011) Organizing Christmas. Organization studies 18(6) 737–745

Kasser, T. & Sheldon, K. (2002) What makes for a merry Christmas? Journal of happiness studies 3, 313-329

Lampert, P. & Menrad, K. (2023) Sustainable star? The carbon footprint of Christmas stars & its variability along the value chain. Sustainability 15, 1-15

Miller, D. (2017) Christmas An anthropological lens. Hau: Journal of Ethnographic Theory 7(3), 409–442

Park, J. & Baker, J. (2007) What would Jesus Buy: American Consumption of Religious and Spiritual Material Goods. Journal for the Scientific Study of Religion 46(4), 501-517

Christmas header credit

Holly leaf: http://cliparts.co/clipart/2307570

Last updated 2 December 2023