Buy Nothing Day – The Ultimate Slacker Holiday

BND

Ever lived smack dab in the center of Madrid during the
Christmas season? If so, you, no doubt, have fought with all your self-control
not to freak out and scream at the crowds who descend like a
plague on the Sol area and manage to make it impossible to simply cross the plaza and get into
the metro station in less than an half an hour! Why are they there? Because
it’s time for gathering with friends and enjoying the spirit of the season? No!
The time to buy! Peace on earth good will towards men? Hardly, these days it’s
all “Spend, spend, spend! Or your family won’t love you!”

So it seems just about perfect for those of us who abhor the hordes, that this
Friday the 23rd of November is Buy Nothing Day (BND)! In its 15th year, Buy
Nothing Day, which originated with the efforts of activists in Vancouver, Canada,
is a statement about there being more to life than the exchange of money for
goods. Making an effort to consume less seems all the more poignant as concerns
about global warming highlight the disproportionate amount of the world’s
resources we first-world-types are gobbling up. As those media muckrakers at
AdBusters.org
explain “With over six billion people on the planet, it’s the
responsibility of the most affluent – the upper 20% that consumes 80% of the
world’s resources – to set out on a new path.”

How does one do that? Well, most groups emphasize that the day shouldn’t just
be a pause in your spending to be resumed the next day, it should be the first
step in becoming a bit greener and thriftier so perhaps you could 1) set up
recycling bins in your flat, 2) find a place to finally drop off those old
clothes you were gonna throw out anyways, 3) repair something old instead of
buying something new, 4) end it all with a nice home-cooked meal from whatever
you’ve already got in the pantry. Ecologistas En Acción also have some
suggestions on how you might alternatively spend your day, but if setting up a round-table discussion critical of consumerism, or organizing
anti-consumerist plays with groups of small children isn’t your cup of tea, not
to worry!

Because in the end it’s a great holiday during which even the most apathetic of
activists can make a statement since it just requires that you not do
something! Sit on your couch and veg on leftovers, invite friends over to
finally drink the remainders of all those half-filled bottles in the cupboard
instead of going out and spending a fortune at a club!

But most important of all, don’t fall into the Christmas consumer madness: don’t
buy presents. Do like you did in elementary school and make cards with
crayons and construction paper and gifts out of dry macaroni (or whatever else
you have lying around). If the family (or friends or boy/girlfriend) complains,
just tell them you’re doing it in an effort to save both our planet and our
collective well-being from the soulless destructive abyss of an increasingly
consumerist society, (and it has nothing to do with the fact that you spent the
money for their presents on drink specials.)

Editor’s note: For
a radically different perspective, if you’d like to see a member of the first
world who seems to have no interest in “Buy Nothing Day” click here. CNN interviews Kalle Lasn, one of the day’s
founders – is it possible that in this day and age a CNN reporter is having
difficulty connecting over-consumption and environmental problems? Inequity and political problems?

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