Media Reports

'Buy Nothing Christmas' carollers bring message to mall

From CBC News, November 27, 2005

See posters here

Cheerful demonstrators opposed to the commercialization of Christmas managed to sing six anti-consumer carols at a Winnipeg mall before security evicted them.

About a dozen members of a group promoting a "Buy Nothing Christmas" set up near Santa's house in Polo Park Mall on Saturday and sang their versions of the old Christmas favourites.

"So, we enter the retail space, we put on our hats, we form a little semicircle two rows deep and start singing our song. And then we just launch into our songs, like 'profits here, profits there, profits everywhere,' you know those kind of things," said Aiden Enns, one of the singers and a veteran anti-consumerism activist.

"It's kind of an in-your-face way of saying stop and think about what your actions mean for you and for the world and the environment ... get people to re-think how they celebrate the season, " said group member Linda Trono.
In Halifax, one Buy Nothing participant is facing charges after Friday night's protest there. The woman was charged with obstruction and assaulting a police officer after about 50 people gathered in front of City Hall. As they marched through a downtown street, shopping carts blocked the way. The woman was arrested after the police tried to clear the path.

Buy Nothing Christmas was started by Canadian Mennonites several years ago.

"My participation in Buy Nothing Christmas directs me to a larger, spiritual perspective on the season," Enns said.
Trono's family makes things like breads to give to each other, instead of spending money on what she said are meaningless gifts.

Enns ran a full-page ad about the buy nothing idea in 2000 [actually, it was 2001-AE] when he was [an] editor of Canadian Mennonite magazine. He later became managing editor of the anti-consumerism magazine AdBusters, which promoted the cause as Buy Nothing Day.

That campaign later changed into a broader Christmas campaign. The Buy Nothing Day website says it is now observed in 55 countries.