Tips for Throwing a Great Christmas Party Despite the Ongoing Mass Extinction
You’ve been hearing for years about the Holocene extinction; that is, the plummeting biodiversity levels of our critically warming planet. The question on your mind is obviously, how am I going to throw my annual holiday soiree if the Earth becomes an ecologically barren hellscape? Read on for some helpful tips on how to throw a great Christmas bash under these difficult conditions, while tactfully overlooking the man-made mass extinction happening this very minute!
Lifelike animal replicas
Show your guests that you care about stewardship by incorporating wildlife into your holiday ambience! A couple of reindeer or a single starving polar bear can go a long way towards creating a festive vibe. However, considering that the current rate of extinction is estimated at anywhere from 100 to 1000 times the standard background rate, you shouldn’t rely on real animals. Instead, commission full-size replicas from your family’s taxidermist, or call your cousin on the Smithsonian Board of Regents and borrow some models from their Hall of Mammals.
Fake snow
The rising global temperature average and increased frequency of natural disasters are annoying side effects of climate change, but let’s be honest, the biggest drawback is that it just doesn’t snow enough anymore. Green Christmases, much like green energy, green architecture, and the green Power Ranger, are overrated and kind of a downer. We advise you to purchase large quantities of fake snow or at least cotton stuffing, in order to maintain the wintry atmosphere.
Trivia games
Put a brave face on the impending catastrophe of planetary collapse by playing a few rounds of topical holiday trivia. Do your guests know their ozone layer statistics? Are they aware of how many saiga antelope are left in the world? Do they know how many weeks it takes the ice at the North Pole to melt each season? (Hint: the answer is a smaller number this year than it was last year.) Or how sea turtles will reproduce when it becomes so warm that all their babies hatch as female? (Hint: the turtles don’t know either.)
Charitable donations
The holiday season is the time to be kind to others, as long as being kind to others doesn’t involve confronting the fact that your life of luxury contributes to the exploitation and destruction of less fortunate nations. Go on, give double in church! Pour soup at that homeless shelter! And then go home and enjoy some delicious roast beef flown straight from a cattle-rich pasture in what used to be a swath of the Brazilian rainforest!
New recipes
Roast beef is all very well, but you should also prepare for the inevitable collapse of the global food supply. Start brainstorming dishes that use jellyfish and corn, as these will likely be the only remaining food sources before long.
Keep it lighthearted
Nobody wants to hear about the projected sea level rise, or the increased acidity of the oceans and what that’s doing to the coral reefs! Keep the chitchat light and entertaining. Unless you’re knocking the sharkfin soup trivia category out of the park, don’t bring up poaching or the importance of apex predators in the food web. Focus on relevant topics, like sports, or what brand of mineral water you’re stocking in your underground apocalypse bunker.
Buy back carbon footprints
Tangible party favors are boring, so instead, buy back your guests’ carbon footprints! It’s certainly too little too late, but they’re sure to appreciate the warm glow of sequestering greenhouse gases in trees to delay the world’s slow descent into chaos. Jon and Suzy will be able to enjoy your party in peace when they know that someone, somewhere, is planting a tiny sapling; they don’t need to feel guilty about taking the private jet back from the Azores for this charming little get-together.
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There you go—great advice for making your Christmas party shine as brightly as the meteor that killed all the dinosaurs (but still wasn’t as disastrous as what we’re doing to the earth right now). With just a little bit of extra effort, you’ll have a great get-together despite the ongoing extinction, rising sea levels, and crippling biodiversity loss. Take that, global warming!
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