Northland campaigners encouraging communities to embrace whanau time instead of buying in to the commercialisation of Christmas hope it will be picked up across the rest of the country.
The campaign, Forget the Bling Bling, Do the Whanau Thing, has been running in Whangarei since 2005 and aims to persuade people to avoid spending money they haven't got and getting into debt at Christmas.
Campaign co-odinator Liz Moore says they have joined with the Mental Health Foundation and made links with many communities in areas including Kaitaia, Kaeo, Ruakaka, Hikurangi and Dargaville with the hope to extending the campaign further.
She says the Foundation was approached and is looking at ways to turn this into a national campaign.
Ms Moore says she wants to encourage whanau to give the gift of their time instead of getting into debt just to buy expensive presents.
