fling93 loves fishies

A Christmas of Being Still

I heard about Buy Nothing Day from Courtney. It’s too late now, but the idea was for everybody to agree to not buy anything on one of the heaviest shopping days of the year, November 26th. Kind of a mini-boycott to protest the consumerism that now dominates the holiday season.

I understand the sentiment behind it, but I have to say that this sort of thing just won’t work from an economic perspective. It’s a pretty similar situation to those calls for boycotts of gasoline on certain days or weeks or from certain gas stations. You just end up shifting some demand from one day to another (or from one station or oil company to another1). The overall level of demand doesn’t change, which means the overall amount of sales and revenues do not change. And so the companies really don’t care.

Indeed, it’s my suspicion that retailers really don’t like the holiday rush that much since it’s harder to project sales for such a high peak and then stock inventories accordingly. Of course, they do like the overall effect of increased demand and buying of stuff. Because seriously, what percentage of the gifts you get are things you really want or use? Yeah, a lot of them end up sitting in an attic or closet unused, or you end up donating them or regifting them to someone else. This essentially means someone got manipulated into paying money for something that nobody wanted (an economist would call this high deadweight losses — via Tyler Cowen). And furthermore, it happens every year. Retailers absolutely love that. And it’s this sort of craziness that inspires anti-consumerism (and I can understand the sentiment, being a big fan of Fight Club and Radiohead’s OK Computer).

But buying stuff is not evil. Indeed, it’s the lifeblood of economic activity. An economy can’t provide jobs unless people are buying stuff to pay for those jobs. But, of course, buying stuff that nobody wants just causes the economy to create more useless things. So I thought I’d provide a few more constructive suggestions.

One obvious way to avoid this problem is gift certificates. Most people think it’s a stupid and thoughtless cop-out of a gift. Indeed, I used to think so, but as my wife pointed out, if your recipient likes to shop, they’ll love them. Just make sure it’s to a store that they actually like to shop at, of course (and me, I actually do thoroughly enjoy getting gift certificates to book stores or record stores or Fry’s Electronics). It’s not for everyone. Some recipients will forget to use them, or maybe you aren’t comfortable letting people know how much money you spent on their gift.

So another approach is what me and my siblings do: exchange gift lists. Just like a bridal registry, we write down a list of things that we actually want and exchange it with each other. That way, we don’t end up with crap we don’t want, and the buyers have a bit of an easier time shopping, and those who enjoy shopping for others still get to do that. Plus there’s still the element of surprise in the unwrapping (although not as much, of course). And if the surprise isn’t all that important anyway, another suggestion is to shop with your gift recipient (presuming they’re a loved one and not a hated enemy). This way, you both can pick out various things that they like, you’ll learn more about each other, and you spend some quality time together (which is especially nice when you’re waiting in line — just remember to keep those public displays of affection within the boundaries of taste).

But if you’re really set against buying anything or just really hate shopping, here’s a suggestion from an essay by Robert Fulghum from his excellent book, Maybe (Maybe Not). On page 63 of the hardcover, he recounts a November where all he felt was dread of the upcoming “holiday juggernaut.” So he wrote the following letter. I hope he doesn’t mind if I reproduce it here2:

Dear Family and Friends:

I saw the cover of the December issue of Esquire magazine this week and brought it to take home to my wife. Because the headline on the cover fitted my mood exactly:

“O H M Y G O D (It’s Christmas)”

Maybe “Jeezus Christ, here comes Christmas again” would be more ironically accurate. Neither exclamation reflects much joy.

Nevertheless, Lynn and I couldn’t seem to help falling into the inevitable what-are-we-going-to-do-about-Christmas discussion—the exasperating one that leads to deep sighs and the making of long lists of people and long lists of things to buy and long lists of things to do as soon as possible even though soon is not so possible. Christmas as a crisis.

At about the same time, we both realized we are just not into doing the Christmas thing this year—at least not in the usual way. It’s not that we’ve become Scroogish about the season—it’s that we don’t want to become Scroogish.

We are still influenced by the memory of being in New Mexico for part of the holiday season last year. We passed through the manic little tourist town of Taos, which was geared up for the maximum level of kitschy consumerism, and drove farther on up the road to the Taos Indian pueblo.

Peace and quiet reigned there. The time from December 15 to January 15 is observed as “The time of being still.” The pueblo is closed to tourists and all commercial activity for a month. To us it felt like the little town of Bethlehem must have been a long time ago.

And so, in the sensible spirit of our Indian cousins, we intend being still this year. We’re not going shopping. The money we might have spent can go to some other good cause. Take the time you might have spent shopping for us and be still a little yourself. Think of us, who wish you quiet joy this Christmas. God rest you, merry gentlemen, and gentlewomen, too—God rest you.

It might be a little late to send this sort of letter out yourself, but maybe you can talk to your friends and relatives and see if any of them are willing to agree to not exchange gifts with you this year and instead donate to a charity of the other’s choosing (or to one from list of charities). I think that’s a lot more in line with the true spirit of giving.

But however you decide to celebrate the holidays, be sure to at least take some time out from the hustle and bustle to just experience and enjoy being still, so you can stop to remember what the holiday is really all about.

That would be cookies. Lots and lots of ’em!

¹ Even in the case where you boycott specific oil companies (e.g. the ones that import from Saudi Arabia or whatnot), oil is a fungible commodity, meaning that you can very easily sell it at the market price to any number of buyers. An increased demand for oil at other oil companies still increases that market price, so the oil companies you are boycotting can still sell any excess oil at that higher price to somebody else (or somewhere else). Return.

² Fulghum doesn’t have any contact info, and he says it’s okay to reproduce stories from his website as long as you give him credit, so I’m going to take a bit of a leap and assume he’s okay with short portions of his books as well. Return.