Resist the siren call of Black Friday

What's your gameplan?

I had a different post ready to go for today, but then I started noticing Black Friday marking and gift guides start drifting into my email inbox. I guess it’s that time already!

There are a lot of asks of us this time of year, from schools asking for donations and volunteer hours, to family commitments, to travel, to tax planning and annual year-end work.

I’m always looking for ways to take things off my plate, and it’s especially necessary (and hard!) right now. One thing I know I can do is bypass the consumerist delirium that seems to engulf the country every November and December. So that’s where we’ll start.

Here’s a new holiday tradition I’m hoping to sustain: my kids and I love dried persimmon fruit, which ripens in our area November-December. We started making our own dried persimmon from neighborhood trees — a festive snack with gift potential.

I’ve done some pre-work in letting family members know our preferences around receiving gifts, and I’m lucky that I don’t have a strong gifting culture in my extended family. If you need a refresher, here are two relevant posts:

• Why I don’t buy my kids toys

• Group brainstorm chock full of reader ideas for avoiding gifts

I’m sending this week’s newsletter almost as a counterweight to all the gift guides and sale hype emails I assume you’re also receiving. Consider this a gentle reminder that you can just…ignore all of it, if you want.

The House Machine Guide to Less this Holiday Season

Less purchasing:

• If you don’t need it enough to pay full price for it, do you really need it at all?

• There are rich dudes atop most marketing efforts trying to manipulate you into believing you need to buy what they’re selling. Consider cutting off their access to your wallet for the next couple months.

• Unsubscribe right now from marketing emails from your favorite brands so you’re not tempted as the “deals” pour in. Or do the even quicker hack of filtering out emails that mention words like Sale, Black Friday, etc. Here’s how to do that in Gmail.

• Remember: everything is 100% off if you don’t buy it.

I went to Costco today, and it was a lot, and I think I may be need to quit Costco. These figures towered 20 feet in the air and why do we need them?

Less unnecessary gifting:

• No one you know needs more stuff in their lives. Seriously, no one. If gifting is culturally necessary, could you give gifts of time, consumables, a thoughtful note, a framed photo, or something else with heart?

• I’m pretty OK with being known as a lame gift giver. I generally just don’t do it, even when social convention would dictate it (like going to a kid’s birthday). Every so often I get excited to give someone a specific gift and I do it with zeal, which in my mind makes up for all the other times I don’t give anything. Maybe it’s being middle-aged, but this seems fine to me.

• This is a big time of year for charities, so you could lean into the idea of giving away this time of year rather than acquiring. Leave this year feeling a little lighter. Along with charitable donations, see what stuff you have lying around your house that could go to an organization working with unhoused individuals.

• Instead of shopping, you could use your Black Friday energy to go through items in your home and fill a bag or two to donate (at the risk of sounding like a sad, young Marie Kondo). Perhaps involve your kids and any family in town—maybe they want some heirlooms? Or just take a nap.

This video feels on point about how out of step the whole tradition of Black Friday is:

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Now You

How are you opting out of (or at least containing) Black Friday this year?

Ideas for Living More Simply