Statistically speaking, the Friday after American Thanksgiving is one of America's biggest shopping days of the year. With Thanksgiving feasting behind them, I guess our Southern Neighbours push away from the turkey table and head for the malls to get on with Christmas shopping. The day after Thanksgiving in the States has been dubbed "Black Friday" because for some retailers, it is the day that they leave the red ink in their yearly ledgers behind. It is also a black day in that, in recent years, people have been trampled to death in their attempts to be first to get to the bargains offered by some big box stores.
In 1992, a Vancouver artist named Ted Dave decided to see what he could do to subvert consumerism. He made up posters and organized the first Buy Nothing Day to offer society a chance to examine the issue of over-consumption. Since then, it has become something of an event in many places, and has been adopted by Adbusters, a not-for-profit, anti-consumerist foundation that engages in consciouness raising efforts. Their website posts information about Buy Nothing Day meet ups, where members creatively disrupt shopping activities in an effort to get people to think about their consumer habits (for example, Whirl-Mart: Participants silently steer their shopping carts around a shopping mall or store in a long, baffling conga line without putting anything in the carts or actually making any purchases.)
I've never attended a Buy Nothing Day event, but we are avid Buy Nothing Day people for as many days of the week as we can be because we disagree with the "over-the-top" consumerism that has become the chief focus of the Advent/Christmas seasons and the rest of North American life. I've done more than a little research for my "Rethinking Christmas: Moving Toward Sustainable Simplicity" workshop, and was shocked to learn from Stats Can that
Canadian Christmas shoppers spent
$28.7 billion
in December 2006.
They gave just over
$8 billion
to charity that same year.
In December 2006,
Canadians spent an average of
$874
per person in retail big box stores.
Care to guess how much the average Albertan spent?
$1,113
It's only November 19th, but last night I went for a walk around our lovely, snow-covered neighbourhood and saw a Christmas tree in someone's front window... so I guess it's not too early to talk about Christmas excess and different things that we can do to combat it. Buy Nothing Day is just one. See if, on November 26th (in North America) and 27th (in Europe and everywhere else), you can avoid running on the treadmill of consumerism. And watch this space for ideas about celebrating Christmas without shopping till you're dropping. Or better yet, check out:
http://www.buynothingchristmas.org/
And, just for fun, here's a little medley my family helped me with a few years ago. Amateur production values, but an important message:
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