Working with soil, water, seeds and sunshine, while seeking a space of contemplation. Learning from clay, sand and silt, while starting a dialogue with nature. The kitchen garden is a living space of opportunities, a starting-point for socio-ecological transformation. The green plots of beans and squash teach us, sometimes disappointingly, that life is a creative process, that all forms of life will emerge and develop as soon as they are given the right conditions.

Speaking the language of tomatoes, what is it that makes us hurry through life, makes us blind to everything that deserves our full attention? The main cause to environmental destruction and social despair is our ignorance, our inability to perceive the interrelatedness of everything, the non-independent nature of human beings and human artifacts. When we begin to learn the language of the kitchen garden, we commit ourselves to a lifelong journey, slowly following the winding path of love and compassion.

Recently, I saw a commercial on TV where a mom and a kid were “baking” together for Christmas. Traditional Christmas music in the background, mother-daughter bonding, really playing at your heartstrings. What were they baking, you ask? They were removing pre-molded cookie dough rounds from the packaging and placing them on a baking sheet. As anyone who was born before 1980 knows, making cookies from scratch takes a half an hour, tops. I worry, is this kid going to grow up thinking this is what it means to bake?

The world is a fast place, filled with stuff and shortcuts. So I guess it makes sense that Christmas would reflect that. The trouble is, we’re all a little broke from living this way, and the planet is groaning from last year’s stocking stuffers. And we’re teaching our children that shortcuts are as good as the real thing. And that having cookies is the same as making them.  So what if this year, instead of spending time at the mall buying family and friends stuff they may not even like, I stay home and bake cookies with them instead?

And so it was that I embarked on my Slow Christmas journey. I am chronicling the annual rituals honestly, from Black Friday to the after Christmas sales. I’ll be taking a closer look at our motives, and the motives of the companies who are selling us stuff, and asking if there might be a better way to keep Christmas. The Christmas season means something different to each of us, but what it shouldn’t mean is endless errands and a second mortgage. We need to slow down Christmas, and start enjoying it.

I hope you’ll join me, dear Slow Planeteers, in pledging to give an experience, a donation, or something homemade for Christmas this year. Keep Christmas Slow.

There is a saying that could as well be the postulate for the slow food movement: “You are what you eat”. If that’s the case, I’d much rather be fresh, healthy and tasty as opposed to chemically processed and filled with preservatives. Wouldn’t you?

Ever since Estonia started to make it’s way to the Western society, we have always aspired to be like them. It’s no wonder we took over so many traditions, manners and ways to handle things just to make a leap from the East to the West as quick as possible. This was also the case with our eating habits. I can still remember when the first Western goods appeared in the shops and what kind of euphoria it caused. There were so many foods and drinks that so little of us had ever had the chance to taste. I dare to say that this kind of razzle-dazzle is still blinding our eyes but our consciousness has also risen a lot.

One thing that, despite of all our “efforts”, is still different in Estonia’s than in most of the Western countries, is the knowledge and habit of cooking our own meals from scratch. Most of us have family living at countrysides or farms that grow their own vegetables and seasonings. I personally have a father-in-law that is a professional fisherman and a hunter - a privilege I am greatly thankful for. My generation is also re-inventing the DIY’s in the kitchen and media promotes going back to the roots as well. There is nothing new to seeing very raw food products on the counters which yes, sometimes isn’t the nicest sight (i.e piggy claws/tails/heads or questionable dairy substances) but leaves definitely no question to each and every Estonian about the food’s journey to our tables - an important passage in the “chapters of slow living”.

But what’s life without paradoxes, right? Even though Estonia is rather “down to Earth” in an agricultural sense, the prices of unprocessed goods are quite high. A “favour” of the capitalist production chain, I suppose. Since it is more profitable for the large food stores to sell manufactured goods, it is fairly difficult and time-consuming to reach the unprocessed ones. But as a wise saying goes: “Where there’s a will, there’s a way”.

That is why the most eager one’s of us have launched the so-called eco-transportation systems. It means that food trailers visit local farmers in the county and distribute their products at the customers’ doors that have placed an order via internet beforehand. A chain that includes only three counterparts, almost no marketing costs and no need for conservation of huge quantities of food.

So in a way it is going past the industry and choosing two things extremely important in the slow food movement - a healthy diet and supporting local farmers. I greet such initiatives with great respect and hope that they will not be the last ones.