Year after year, as our calendars inch closer to Black Friday, many of us experience the feeling that something is wrong. Bombarded by reports on the evening news of injuries, fights, and deaths, stressed from having to decipher what our friends and family want for Christmas, inundated with advertisements for things we don’t need but are told we do, and nervous how our credit card statements will look come January, we wonder why the holidays are not filled with the joy we hope for. Instead, each year, we find ourselves trapped again in the cycle of buying.
Does this sound familiar?
Not wanting to be a scrooge, we grit our teeth and flex our “buying power”, as if there is any real power or freedom in this cultural exercise. As the story goes, receiving new stuff will make our friends, our family, and our own lives more complete. This new cable or Wi-Fi is just what you needed to make your kids and grandkids want to visit. This new phone will free you from the slow and inefficient technology of the past. And don’t we all want a more complete life for ourselves, our families, and our communities? ...so we shop...for overpriced needless goods, often made by cheap, exploited labor, sold by the underpaid overworked, bought by a financially indebted people, given as gifts to a materialistically saturated culture, benefitting a faceless few who have sold us the lie that this narrative is good for the world……
Is Black Friday the best story society can be telling? Or can we tell a better one?
What if we, as a community, could shift the narrative so that our children would be baffled there was once a day called “Black Friday”? What if the success of our communities was measured by our integrity, kindness, generosity, charity, and rest, and not based solely on material and economic gain? What if we fostered a narrative in which the tide of consumerism and the lie of material discontentment had been reversed into a flourishing society focused on who we have not what we don’t possess?
Will you help write this story?
This November 22nd to 25th, we invite you to join the movement of those who have chosen to abstain from searching for “deals” on products, and instead are searching for ways to give their time, skills, and resources to people in need. Instead of buying and gifting material things, are planning meaningful experiences and creating new memories outside the context of commercialism. Instead of racing through the holidays, are re-learn how to rest.
Together we can transform the Black Friday through Cyber Monday weekend into a celebration, a practice in giving without purchasing, a mark on our calendars in which we look forward to, because with it brings rest, relief from anxiety, and a narrative our communities can be proud of.
Practical Tips on What to Do November 22- 25, 2018
Find ways to honor the Indigenous cultures on whose land we occupy
Visit a local or national park, and/or plan a hike with family and friends
Have a leftover party with friends, family, neighbors
Shut down your business for the day and give employees the day off
If you have to work, be a hard worker, kind, and helpful
Call or write a letter to someone you are grateful for
Bake for friends and neighbors
Serve at a homeless shelter, soup kitchen
Explore your town or city, and visit spots you’ve never been to before
Smile at every person you meet
Be on the lookout for ways to offer help to people throughout the day
Discuss sharing experiences with your family this holiday, rather than giving gifts
Enjoy a day of crafting or making jars of homemade jam to give as holiday gifts
Make plans for intentional "me time" (schedule resting, getting a massage, taking a warm bath, or going for a hike)
Have a no technology day and instead, enjoy board games, puzzles, and conversations with one another.
Take a deep breath...worry less. Tomorrow will come, take a break from worrying today.
Get a group together to create collages or vision boards
Enjoy some time coloring, sketching, painting, or intentionally creating art in some other form
Walk out and talk to your neighbors or maybe invite them in for some tea
Print out lyrics to your favorite songs and do a sing-along or karaoke
Play a game of charades or print out a set of deep questions to ask one another - get to know your family and friends better than you thought you did
Spend a few hours at your local library or read those books that have been sitting on your bookshelf.