Tag Archives: Buy Nothing Day

Just say no to Christmas?

Alternative uses for a credit card!

link to Just say no to Christmas? from USATODAY.com.

See, being a non-conformist can get you into print! After I did this post a few weeks ago on Adbuster’s Buy Nothing Day and #OccupyXmas, I was contacted by the paper to contribute to their story on “Christmas without consuming.”

It’s good to know there are others out there (many, many others, I would imagine) who feel the same way I do about the consumerism that has taken over Xmas and has become responsible for so much stress and debt.

So what am I doing for Xmas? Dinner with friends on both Xmas Eve and Xmas day, and an open house in the neighborhood, where I’m told (yes!) there will be cookies.

This year in particular, because of the death in our family, since I don’t celebrate the crassness of Xmas there were no diversions, such as (un)necessary trips to malls, real or online, parking lot traffic jams, overdrawn checking accounts, and well, you get my drift. I’m grateful for the time I had with my family.

My best wishes to everyone for fellowship and light on the holiday – after all, the kernel takeaway from Xmas is “peace on earth, goodwill to men” – right? There doesn’t need to be more than that, unless of course you have to have all the rest. It’s certainly been enough for me, going on 15 years since I said goodbye to all that.

You know what? Once again, nothing bad happened.

Black Friday becoming Black Thursday … (gimme gimme your dough)

get away from my dinner

Black Friday can’t come too soon for these guys – LA Times story.

As you might guess from the photo I chose, this story really disgusted me.

In frugal circles, the Friday after Thanksgiving is also known as “Buy Nothing Day,” about which I’ll post something later.

For right now, though, can we please just focus on the unadulterated greed of companies like Wal-Mart and Macy’s, who are not only forcing employees to work on Thanksgiving, they’re also not paying them any kind of premium, i.e., holiday pay.

Dickens couldn’t have written a better dastardly and cowardly villain! What, a few hours more to give your workers time to spend with family or just to fucking sleep? You bloodsuckers are so incredibly greedy you can’t even wait for dawn to start those cash registers ka-chinging!

Chops to Mr. Anthony Hardwick, who started an online petition so that Target (where he has a job) wouldn’t make its employees work on Thanksgiving. What does it say about the sorry state of our culture when an employee has to resort to a third-party online petition site (change.org) to get HIS OWN EMPLOYER to possibly listen to him?
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It’s not exactly like he’s a freeloader. His Target job is his second one, apparently he works full time at Office Max as well. Continue reading →

The Lives of Others

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FppW5ml4vdw[/youtube]

‘Tis that weird season of consumerism…. just when I was feeling all thankful and shit come all the media reports of Black Friday and idiots camping out on Thanksgiving and pushing and shoving and stampeding their way into the modern Palaces of Worship we call The Mall, The Wal-Mart, the Target, the Nordstrom Northgod, etc.

There’s a better way. Here’s something called Buy Nothing Day. That’s right, you don’t have to be part of the herd, there’s no law that says you gotta buy into the soul-killing retail crapathon, conveniently and cynically tied to ancient times of religious and seasonal celebration. Instead, you might spend some time with your friends and family, out in nature, or reading, making love, sleeping, dreaming – all of which are probably free or at most, very low cost.

Or, if you need another suggestion, let me offer The Lives of Others, a wonderful German film from 2006, which won the Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film and a multitude of other awards. Starring Ulrich Mühe, Martina Gedeck and Sebastian Koch, it was written and directed by Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck, who I think should probably get an award just for his name.

Seriously, I found this movie surprisingly and delightfully uplifting, taking me totally by surprise. Also, I think it’s important to remember how recent the totalitarian government in much of Europe was. So take the chance and invest the two hours in something that will make you feel just great – all the while avoiding traffic, parking lots, rude people, screaming children, agita, and tons of worthless junk you won’t remember in a year.