November 26 is 'Buy Nothing' Day

Idea exchange
November 2004

November 26 is 'Buy Nothing' Day
It's that time of year again when Halloween lighting fixtures make way for Christmas ornaments on supermarket shelves and the early-bird Chirstmas commericials start making the overly merry, nausea-inducing appearances. But it's also time for what has become a different kind of annual seasonal observance for many people all over the world: Buy Nothing Day.

First observed in 1992 and organized through Canada's anticonsumerist Media Foundation (publishers of Adbusters magazine), "Buy Nothing Day" simple requires a short fast from consumption.

The BND website notes: "For 24 hours, millions of people around the world do not participate in the doomsday economy, the marketing mind-games, and the frantic consumer-binge that's become our culture. We pause. We make a small choice not to shop. We shrink our footprint and gain some calm. Together we say to Exxon, Nike, Coke and the rest: enough is enough. And we help build this movement to rethink our unsustainable course."

Adbusters offers plenty of suggestions for alternative activities on this day after Thanksgiving, a day that marks the "official" beginning of the Christmas shopping season and that has typically been marked by long and sometimes chaotic lines outside of American department stores. This year, you can start your own, less hectic and gluttoness holiday tradition. To help save the earth, just do—and buy—nothing on November 26.

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