Not even a mountain of discounted dark chocolate truffles and half-price cashmere sweaters, could induce Enviro Girl to go shopping on Black Friday. The latest predictions she read indicated 147 million people planned to shop Black Friday weekend. And it’s doubly distressing when the day after Thanksgiving (and in some cases, the night of), most of these shoppers plan to buy stuff for themselves. Consumption and consumerism has corrupted most people’s Christmas season–heck, it’s even leaked backwards into Thanksgiving this year. There’s no escaping the message from the advertisements: buying stuff will make us all happier. The reality is that going on a spending frenzy at the mall has absolutely zilch to do with contentment, joy or peace on earth. In fact, the link between happiness and gratitude is strongly supported by psychologists and a variety of studies.
This Friday the Eco Women join Adbusters in rejecting Black Friday as the National Holiday of Consumption. Instead we plan to stay home, go to the library, spend time with our families, have coffee with an old friend, or deck our halls — but we DO NOT SHOP! It’s Buy Nothing Day and you’re encouraged to keep your green in your wallet. (See how this is a holiday the Eco Women can get behind?)
By not buying anything on the largest shopping day of the year, you help send the message that we have enough stuff. Between the fragile economy and ongoing environmental issues, it’s time to consume less. Whether you call it Buy Nothing Day, Buy Nothing Christmas, or Advent Conspiracy, we encourage you to stay out of stores and keep your money in your wallet/purse/pocket this Friday.
The video below is one of the things that convinced Enviro Girl to spend less on presents several years ago. If we keep our giving in perspective and focused on what would truly spread peace and goodwill toward humankind, we’d find little justification to wait in line outside Toys R Us Thanksgiving afternoon for the doors to open at 8:00 p.m. so we could save 50% on a Lego set.
How do you participate in this year’s Buy Nothing Day? BUY NOTHING on November 26th. It’s free, it’s easy, and you’ll feel so good!
Tell the Eco Women: Will you participate in Buy Nothing Day?
Buy Nothing Day is on the 24th November here in the UK. Our family are celebrating by inviting friends round to eat homemade cakes & do some sewing for charity
Thanks for highlighting this holiday. I hadn’t come across Advent Conspiracy before & enjoyed the video.
Eco Women is a great blog – thanks for inspiring!
I truly buy nothing on the day after Thanksgiving — no gifts, no groceries, no gas for the car. I don’t go to stores and I don’t buy anything online.
We stay curled up in our pj’s eating leftovers all day the day after Thanksgiving, but we do celebrate “Small Business Saturday” by hitting the boutiques in an adorable neighborhood in Baltimore that one of my cousins lives & works in.
go to the library
Actually, you might not (I hope you can’t) even do that. I am happy that my library is closed on Friday. I wish they could close the entire four-day weekend.
I usually only change my pi’s for running or workout clothes, do a little decorating and hang out with the family on the day after Thanksgiving. I did brave the Pearl Izumi outlet a few Black Friday’s ago, and will never do it again.