An Ambitious Progressive Person’s 25 days of Christmas
(Written for 2018 in the USA.)
Dec 1 - Start collecting donations at work or among your friends of cash to give to your local food bank. Tell them you plan to donate on the 14th.
Dec 2 - Call your local women’s shelter to see what they need. Post what they need on social media along with directions for how to give it.
Dec 3 - Pick a religion you know little or nothing about and research which holidays are associated with it this month and why. Seek to understand the importance of these holidays to the religion. Learn something about the variation in how these holidays are celebrated between different parts of the world.
Dec 4 - Call your representatives to ask them to repeal the Real ID Act in its entirety or at least the portion of it which requires all identification used for federal purposes to show gender. Then post on social media, say that you did so, and encourage others to do so as well.
Dec 5 - Look up your local resources for homeless youth and see what they need. Post their needs on social media along with directions for how to give it or volunteer. Then do so yourself.
Dec 6 - Look up your city’s anti-homeless laws and familiarize yourself with how they work and how they harm people. Start thinking of corrections that could be useful.
Dec 7 - Contact 3 different local friends and loved ones about the anti-homeless laws in your city and brainstorm corrections with each of them.
Dec 8 - Look up information about your city council meetings and how to speak at one of them. Start the process of signing up to speak to your city council about the anti-homeless laws, and follow through with that process and with planning what you will say over the course of the time it will take before you can speak. This may be weeks or months.
Dec 10 - Remind people that you are collecting money for the local food bank and let them know they have until the 14th (this Friday). Look up the information for how to donate money to your food bank.
Dec 11 - Look up your local advocacy groups for at least two races that you are not a part of. Find out what they need and want from allies. Post about it on social media, then start doing it yourself.
Dec 12 - Look up what it means to live a zero-waste lifestyle. Identify a permanent change you can make this week that will lead you closer to to living zero-waste, then implement it.
Dec 13 - Look up Betsy Driver and educate yourself about her importance in American history. Then, if you don’t know much about what intersex is or the harms suffered by intersex people, look that up too.
Dec 14 - Finish collecting money for your food bank and donate what you have raised.
Dec 15 - Read about the actual scientific understanding of human sex differentiation as a combination of hormones, gonads, and chromosomes and why male/female categories are inadequate to describe it, then write a letter to your local paper explaining this science to educate your community about intersex and trans people. Vet and cite your sources.
Dec 16 - Boil your letter to the editor from yesterday down into something you can easily post on social media. Post it, and be sure to include links to your sources.
Dec 17 - Go back to your research on zero-waste living. Make adjustments if the change you implemented needs some tweaking. Pick another two changes you can make by the end of this week and implement both of them.
Dec 19 - Call your local animal shelter and find out if they need more people to sign up to foster pets after they are abandoned after the holidays. If they do and you qualify, find out what you need to do to sign up and do it. Let people know how they can help on social media.
Dec 20 - Look up at least one disabled person who contributed in some way to your field or a field you are interested in. Learn about this person’s contribution. If you look up more than one, try to find one with a physical disability and one with a non-physical disability.
Dec 21 - Call your representatives, explain that Trump and Pence need to be removed from office and why, and ask that they see to it. This was written in November, so if something else is pressing in current events when you call, talk about that too.
Dec 22 - Call your local Planned Parenthood and find out whether they need volunteers. If they do, find out what you need to do to sign up and post about it on social media. Then do it.
Dec 23 - Look up one non-white person whose race is not the same as yours who contributed in some way to your field or a field you are interested in. Learn about this person’s contribution.
Dec 24 - Look up which indigenous people(s) once thrived on the land where your city now stands. Find out where they live now. Find out which language(s) they spoke, whether those language(s) are still spoken today, and some basic information about their culture(s).
Dec 25 - Take a break and celebrate Christmas.
