Buy Nothing Christmas

It’s a couple of weeks from the big day, and you’re already tired of the pressure to shell out money you don’t have to please people you’re not sure are worth it? Are all those easy-credit, “No payments until after New Year’s Day!” offers wearing you down? Just inform everyone that you’ve resigned from the consumer culture. It’s a good idea for a lot of reasons: Consumer debt has reached new highs in the United States, which might explain why we don’t blink an eye at government deficits in the trillions. If you’d like to get off the materialist merry-go-round—and maybe even get in touch with the spirit of Christmas—check out this Web site. It has all kinds of ideas for ways to take the dollars out of the holidays. And it reminds us that Mary, the unwed mother of God, went against the grain, too.