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:

• BuyNothingDay.co.uk
• Buy Nothing Day on Wikipedia

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.