The Day After Thanksgiving

It’s Black Friday. Or Buy Nothing Day. Or Flannel Friday. Or Block Friday. What the day after Thanksgiving is depends on your perspective. Let’s start with that last one.

There’s an amazing company, Holstee, that wrote the Holstee Manifesto and sells really great products, from clothes to cards to mounted Holstee Manifesto posters.  Check out their page today and you’ll see they’re diverting traffic immediately to Block Friday – away from their blog and even their sales page.  [Update 11/30/15: that link no longer works, sorry!]

They explain that Block Friday “started as a way to remind ourselves that even as we begin the holiday shopping season in earnest, we can still be mindful of the way we’re spending our time and money. What are you Blocking Friday for this holiday season?”

I’m blocking today off for reflection, some water-based detoxing, and some intentionality around my money and health choices, including the food I eat and the places I shop. (See what’s going on over at the #WalmartStrikers hashtag.)

Others are calling today Buy Nothing Day. Do a quick Google search for more info; there are several organizations and bloggers out there promoting this, but I think the idea was first widely promoted by Adbusters.

This article on Treehugger explains the day as “Timed to coincide with one of the busiest shopping days on the US retail calendar, as well as the unofficial start of the international holiday-shopping season, Buy Nothing Day has taken many shapes, from relaxed family outings, to free, non-commercial street parties, to politically charged public protests. Anyone can take part provided they spend a day without spending.”

For more info, here are some other sources:

What I like about this concept is that it counter-balances the manic, frenzied, inhumane nature of Black Friday. Just yesterday I was enjoying a mellow meal with friends, thankful for good company and food abundance. And the next day I’m supposed to be out with millions of other shoppers, spending money, wasting resources, and acting like I finally got to the front of the breadline after nearly starving? No thank you.

Some folks are taking this all a step further. Leo Babauta over at Zen Habits is challenging readers to Buy Nothing Until 2013. He writes, “Do it as a protest against consumerism and corporate influences on our lives. Do it as a tool for contentment, for simplicity. Do it to reclaim the holidays as a time of connection and love, not of buying and debt. Do it just to see if you can.”

Claire Thompson at Grist recently wrote about Buy Nothing Christmas. The idea originally came from a group of Canadian Mennonites, is being promoted by Adbusters, and Thompson outlines how she’ll live out the pledge over the next month, by limiting spending and not shopping at chain stores.

That last bit is definitely in line with my values. Many are celebrating Plaid Friday or Flannel Friday the day after Thanksgiving, meaning we’ll shop local this holiday season. Click here for a great list of 12 ways to “occupy” the holidays.  In Montpelier, it’s Flannel Friday and you get discounts for wearing flannel downtown.

I haven’t pulled out the flannel yet – and I’ve only gotten as far as the coffee shop downstairs from my apartment. But droves of people are coming in. On the one hand, this is great for downtown, locally-owned businesses. But I also wonder what damage this constant movement, constant buying, constant consumerism is doing to us as a society. I assume it’s molding us into consumers rather than citizens and I also assume it’s the physical equivalent of elevating the flight-or-flight autonomic nervous system of society.

I’ll, largely, opt out. As Leo Babauta sums up his challenge, “We are more than consumers. We don’t need to buy gifts to celebrate the holidays with each other — we can get together, make delicious food, go outside and do something fun, play games, talk, tell jokes, tell stories, give hugs.

“We are alive, and don’t want to waste the hours we have in chain box stores and malls buying things we don’t really need.”

Amen.

3 Comments for “The Day After Thanksgiving”

Keri Brown

says:

As usual – LOVE IT!

We’re doing something new this year: Each of my children is getting for Christmas – one bought present, one handmade present, and a stocking. That’s it. It started as a decision based on our lack of disposable income at the moment. But the more I thought about it the more I realized I don’t WANT to raise kids who think of Christmas as that time when we valued our self-worth on who got more/the best presents. I want our Christmas to be focused not on celebrating how much stuff we got (and trust me, my kids want for nothing), and instead focusing on our love for one another. Oh, and food.

One other thought – I was remembering the other day reading the Little House series by Laura Ingalls Wilder with my daughter when she was younger. I remembered that in those Christmases Laura and her sister Mary were overjoyed at Christmas to receive a piece of peppermint and a hair ribbon. It never says, but in retrospect I think those girls were more overjoyed by their Pa’s safe return from an arduous winter journey into town than by a piece of candy. But either way, I think we’d all be better off to be like those girls and be psyched to get what we do, and not worry about who got the most!

Michelle Barber

says:

Glad you liked this post, Keri! I love your idea about Christmas gifts this year too. Are you finding that you’re all having to be more thoughtful about what you want and request (besides a safe return from the winter’s journey into town!)?

Keri Brown

says:

Ah! Such a thoughtful question, Michelle! But in our immediate family we have a culture of not telling each other what we want. We like surprises, and we like giving thoughtful gifts. And I think we like the challenge too. This year I’m giving my daughter something I’m relatively sure she has no idea she wants, but is going to absolutely love. For me, it’s all the fun of Christmas: giving someone something and having them genuinely enjoy it – the surprise, the gift itself, and the thought behind the gift.