(an idea that’s spreading rapidly among the 1-billion “haves”)

Dreading the holiday season? The frantic rush and stress? The to-do lists and sales hype? The spiritless hours trapped in malls? This year, why not gather together your loved ones and decide to do things differently? With the simplest of plans you can create a new rhythm, purpose, and meaning for the holidays. Why not take the spirit of Buy Nothing Day and morph it into Buy Nothing Christmas?

With catastrophic climate change looming, the time is overdue for the rich one billion people on the planet to consume less! And if that’s too extreme for grandma and the kids, try for a Buy Less Christmas, a Buy Less Hanukkah, or a Buy Less Kwanzaa… and maybe a buy local, buy fairer, buy indie event. Whatever you decide, ’tis the season to reclaim our year-end celebrations and make them our own again.

“A few people start breaking their old patterns, embracing what they love (and in the process, discovering what they hate), daydreaming, questioning, rebelling. What happens naturally then, according to the revolutionary past, is a groundswell of support for this new way of being, with more and more people empowered to perform new gestures unencumbered by history.”

“On this 20th anniversary of Buy Nothing Day, let’s take things to a new level… consumer minimalism is one of many strategic operations in a continued fight for real democracy… This year, let’s fast like never before. Let’s get monastic with our actions. Let’s take back our holidays. Let’s wean ourselves off mega-corporations, put our money back into the local independent economy, and live for a different kind of future.”

Visit websites for Buy Nothing Day (25 November in North America this year, 26 November elsewhere) or Buy Nothing Christmas for lots of ideas and resources on how to spend less and live more.