By The Leveller Staff
Black Friday just smashed through our lives like a brick through a Starbucks window. Inboxes and mail room recycling bins become full of flyers misidentifying the last Friday of the month as a “Black Friday Week” and “Black Friday Month”, paving the way for the inevitable “Black Friday Year.”
As if retail store decor wasn’t enough of an indicator, the Christmas music jingling on corporate radio stations should have told you that the festive season is coming very soon (in 6 weeks). With so many disposable items to buy at inscrutable markdown prices, where should one shop for the best deals on gifts for their loved ones?
The Tyee, reporting from a region where climate change doesn’t impact its annual snowfall, stated that their local corporate radio stations began playing Christmas music on November 13th.
This year we promised our families we wouldn’t go Scrooge-mode by screaming “bah humbug” into every single storefront up and down Bank Street. Instead, we’re going to embrace the Christian-appropriated Pagan holiday season. The Leveller is here to help with our first and only Leveller Holiday Gift Giving Guide!
The Gift of Relentlessly Horrifying News
The Leveller previously reported that media matters. Turns out, it still does!
Almost every news source, independent journalist and news aggregate offers free newsletters (like us). Consider forwarding the latest anxiety-inducing headlines to the inboxes of your friends and family, so they too can watch in terror as the atrocities which they have no control over unfold.
While paid-subscription models to access news reports may be a relic of the pre-Tiktok era, journalists and media agencies are still selling them. Occasionally, these subscriptions go hand-in-hand with offering their news content for free, while appealing to the good nature of their readership or listeners to pay for quality reporting — a gift subscription would help journalists as well as the chronically-online or supposedly “red-pilled” family members who only receive their news from fake memes shared on Meta.
Flush With Cash? Really, Really Flush?
If the past four years of Ottawa city budgets are indicative of disposable wealth in the region, there’s so much we can spend money on!
Well, maybe a few things as a treat? Actually, just a $16,300,000 increase for Ottawa Police Services, at the expense of transit fare, tax hikes and service cuts, as reported by Horizon Ottawa.
If you’re flush with cash — but not too flush — the Zibi development, which The Leveller documented opposition towards for the past decade, graciously offers affordable housing units. Consider the gift of helping a family member get a start on their own! Well, their own co-living space with 3-4 other tenants. Affordable housing rates starting at $1,190 per month — that’s incredibly affordable, right?
Is Anything Free Anymore?
Don’t let that Gross Domestic Product line going up fool you, because wages haven’t been keeping up with inflation for decades. Within your community, free events make it accessible to have fun with other people while circumventing the oppressive capitalist beast lurking around every corner.
There’s always the typical tourist attractions, such as the Lights Across Canada walking route which is essentially a public-private partnership of government propaganda and corporate exploitation. The grim irony of the oil- and gas-sponsored winter events being cut short because of climate change hasn’t been lost on us.
Dying social media platform, Facebook, is still a host of really really free markets. That is, when they’re not over-saturated with bots scripted to greet strangers with suspicious links or redirecting you to their favourite financial adviser (they’re selling Bitcoin. It’s a fake currency. No, it’s not real. Yes, it’s destroying the world.).
To answer the question in the subheading, there are still reliable and free things in Ottawa. On top of loaning out books (you probably shouldn’t have wrapped it and put it under the tree), there’s musical instruments, streaming subscriptions and even anime, films and video games (we’ve included our recommendations).
Stop Buying Stuff
If you’re artistic (or just plain productive), you can just make your own Christmas present!
Just look at how any attempt at a craft can become a decorative ornament.
You know that old saying, “if it ain’t [sic] broke; don’t fix it”? Well, if it isn’t broken, it will be and the fine print of the warrant won’t cover shipping or a replacement. Try taking your headphones with one broken speaker to the Repair Cafes put on by the Ottawa Tool Library. The first Repair Café of 2025 will be Feb 22nd at Jim Durrell Centre in collaboration with Ottawa South Eco-Action Network.
Look Around Your Community
Last year, community organizations held parties, potlucks, dances and other festive events at free or affordable rates. The Ottawa chapter of Independent Jewish Voices held a Chanukah for a ceasefire and justice in Palestine with free food and posters as well as crafts and menorah lighting.
When they’re not explaining the local police complaint process, Punch Up Collective keeps track of radical events like these on a mailing list and calendar. This is one of the best ways to hear about activist projects throughout the city directly in your inbox. If you’re not finding an event that speaks to you, the Collective has helpful tips on organizing your own accessible events.
‘Tis the Season for Mutual Aid
Give in to that nagging voice in your head that asks “why don’t you do something good for a change?” While not just for the holidays, mutual aid is the practice of just cooperating with people around you. One way this can be accomplished by handing out free food, toiletries, clothing and groceries to neighbours and the city’s homeless population.
On December 1st, Support Sistem are offering families a clothing swap and hot drinks to sip. Their events throughout the year are prime examples of families helping out families without financial incentives.
Anarchist Santa, Peter Kropotkin wrote that mutual aid “is the surest means for giving to each and to all the greatest safety, the best guarantee of existence and progress, bodily, intellectual, and moral.” A society that looks out for each other, rather than competes, profits and exploits each other, is one that will flourish and survive.
And isn’t that the reason for the season?
