Voices speak up for simple life
While hordes of shoppers invaded the stores Friday, a
much smaller group of locals spoke out against holiday
consumerism. As part of International Buy Nothing Day,
Rico Lighthouse and his wife, Beth, spent the afternoon in
Old Town Square serving free tea and hot chocolate and
entertaining passers-by with juggling and live tunes from
their musical group The Lighthouse Band. Their point,
other than spreading holiday cheer, was to draw attention
to Buy Nothing Day, a day which supporters urge consumers
to remember the holidays should be less about buying and
more about spending time with family. Rico Lighthouse said
he hopes people will try to enjoy the holidays by nurturing
personal relationships. "People should give the gift of
yourself, which is often the most withheld gift in the
world," he said. When they do give material gifts, he
encourages people to buy from local artisans, or make the
gifts themselves so they are more meaningful. "I'm not
trying to tell people, 'Don't buy stuff,' but 'Think about
what you are buying,'" he said. Buy Nothing Day started
15 years ago in Vancouver, British Columbia, not just as a
backlash to holiday materialism but also to big spending
throughout the year. Organizers challenge consumers to
pick one day a year to live simply, spend more time with
family and think about the environmental and ethical
consequences of mass consumerism. In the past, local
supporters have staged small protests at shopping centers
in town, but Lighthouse said he was interested in gently
spreading his message through cheer. Most Shoppers don't
realize the social and environmental impact they have by
mindlessly buying mass quantities, said Jana Six, who
participated in Buy Nothing Day events in Fort Collins in
the past. Six earned a master's degree in environmental
education at Colorado State University and focused parts
of her studies on consumerism. Mass consumerism during the
holidays and throughout the year takes advantage of cheap
labor and depletes natural resources and ecosystems
throughout the world, said Six, who works for Alliance for
Sustainable Colorado, a nonprofit environmental and social public
policy institute in Denver. "We're consuming our planet to
death," she said. But one local mall manager said she
believes people are starting to think more about the
products they buy.
While many consumers continue to engage in holiday
shopping frenzies, more shoppers are concerned about where
the products come from and who made them, said Cynthia
Eichler, general manager of Foothills Mall. "Overall,
consumers are more savvy than they used to be," she said.
"We're hearing conversations these days that you wouldn't
have heard five years ago." Even on Black Friday, shoppers
are more cognizant, she said. one way to feel good about
holiday purchases is to be a more responsible consumer,
said Wendy Poppen, manager of 10,000 Villages in Old Town
Square, which specializes in international fair trade
goods. Like other fair trade organizations, Poppen's store
buys environmentally and socially friendly crafts directly
from artisans cooperatives, where fair labor prices and
decent working conditions are ensured. She urges holiday
shoppers to not only ask who made their products and how,
but to consider whether they really even need the product.
"If you're going to buy something, don't just consume to
consume," she said. "In reality, it's goodwill." Another
opinion is to buy local, which keeps money in state and in
the hands of local employees instead of exporting it to
out of state corporations, Six said.
