Shop, Go Broke or Buy Nothing?

Black Friday Five from revgalblogpals

Reverendmother here... My husband accompanied my brother this morning to stand on line for a Nintendo Wii. They headed out at oh-dark-thirty this morning but were, sadly, thwarted. There were 30 people in line for 6 units. They are trying to be philosophical about it--"That's the most I was willing to do, so I'm OK with it... imagine the people who waited for hours!" my brother said.

So this is a "Black Friday" Five (aka Buy Nothing Day) in honor of the busiest shopping day of the year:

1. Would you ever/have you ever stood in line for something--tickets, good deals on electronics, Tickle Me Elmo? NO!

2. Do you enjoy shopping as a recreational activity? NO!

3. Your favorite place to browse without necessarily buying anything. Not sure you would believe this or understand this, but if I browse there are a couple of places that I like to that at. Having grown up with mainly 5 and dime stores, I end up browsing at dollar stores. I browse the candy aisle, especially around the good chocolates. I browse pet stores. And finally but most important, I browse the bookstores.

4. Gift cards: handy gifts for the loved one who has everything, or cold impersonal symbol of all that is wrong in our culture? I'll take another view, when we adopted Katy we received several gift cards which were very helpful to shopping. We had no idea what size she was going to be, so people decided to give gift cards. I have bought them for my grandchildren when they lived far away, and I knew I wasn't going to be able to get the present there to them. But I normally don't buy them. I think they are another invention of the business world to get you to spend your money. And by the way some stores even if they don't have an expiration date on the card will charge you extra if you don't use it within a certain period of time.

5. Discuss the spiritual and theological issues inherent in people coming to blows over a Playstation 3. Now, this is what is wrong with our culture today. It reminds me of the movie that Gov. "Arnie" made Jingle All the Way. Theologically, God is not God. We are god, the thing is god, money is god, the kids are god. Instead of loving our neighbor, its all about me god, and get out of my way. It bespeaks our emptiness and need to fill ourselves up with things. It also speaks of our parental spiritual neglect of our children. And then the rest of it is the true meaning of Christmas or Christ mass is irrelevant to us. Whose Jesus anyway? Isn't Christmas about how many gifts we can get or give, especially if it is the newest, latest item? Person beware.

And now for the bonus item: It was "Buy Nothing Friday". Did you buy anything, shop at a mall, or retail store? Did you get up early and shop? No, no, no, and no. I can't the pictures to upload on here, but if you go here or here you can download one. You can go here to adbusters for more on Buying nothing for Christmas. If you haven't visited the Church of Stop Shopping with the Rev. Billy, then you have missed church. Or about the Church of Immaculate Consumption.(click on the picture to get to the website.) At Alternatives for Simple Living you can find some good resources for Advent and Christmas, like "Whose Birthday is it Anyway?", Their freebies and archives are very useful, I have handed out their devotionals to use in my previous church and plan to do so in this church.

Here is the link for Buy Nothing UK
Luonto-Liitto Finland
(I)nterenational Buy Nothing Day
Stories from Canada

Maggie Dawn (revgalblogpal) wrote a post in her blog about buy nothing day