Buy Nothing Day

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.