Don't Buy It

Still, shopping is not just something "they" make us do. It provides undeniable pleasure -- and more.

During our cold-turkey year, I was sometimes bored. The British psychotherapist Adam Phillips calls boredom the restless state of waiting to desire. Consumption gives us myriad names for inchoate desire -- and ready objects to allay it. Take away shopping, and you're left with the restlessness.

When we couldn't go out for a beer or a meal with friends, Paul and I felt lonely. When others talked about the latest movies, we sat dumb. I felt out of it. No longer the plugged-in cultural maven, I wasn't myself. In a consumer society, much of our social, cultural and political life -- and even our identities -- is cobbled together from the things and experiences we purchase.

We had to get out of the apartment. So we walked to free concerts and the Brooklyn Public Library. We took in museums on free nights. We trawled the public sphere with gratitude and glee -- but also with dismay, because the public sphere is in sorry shape.

We realized that there are only so many dollars, and they can either go to private consumption -- President Bush's concept of an "ownership society" -- or be invested, through taxes, in the public good. The latter can't just be entered as a personal-finance debit. We should see it as an asset, in the form of highways or health clinics, yes, but also in the feeling that we're in this together, a.k.a. community.

Not shopping connected Paul and me with community in concrete ways. We devoted more time to activism and more money to favorite causes. Meanwhile, I paid off an $8,000 credit card debt without really trying and haven't run it up again. I still shop less than I did. And on more or less the same income, I give away much more money than I used to.

The shopping hiatus reminded me how sweet it is to take home the perfect pair of trousers or sit in a café watching the world. Unless you're a monk, material abstinence does not magnify the spirit. Still, compared with either consumption or abstention, the best soul-grower is social connection.

Which brings me back to the holidays.

By the time December of our non-shopping year rolled around, Paul's and my non-consumer confidence was strong. We knew we could walk away from the seasonal extras -- red-velvet ribbon, champagne flutes, figgy pudding (whatever that is) -- like marathon front-runners easing through a 5K race. But what about gifts? What about parties? Were we going to impose our skinflintery on our loved ones? Did we have to beg off fireside get-togethers just to avoid bringing a box of chocolates?

We did not, and truth be told, we did not want to. We relish lighting up the dark days with giving. But how could we give without getting and spending? How could we celebrate without adding to the global litter?

I got a clue from the past. The midwinter holidays originate in pagan rites to seduce the sun back from the underworld. Doing that requires excess -- gorging, reveling and giving.

In this spirit, Paul and I throw an annual Hanukkah Latke Bash, the no-shopping year not excepted. We load the table with dozens of potato pancakes plus vats of sour cream and homemade applesauce and plates of smoked fish. Our guests arrive with libations, load their plates and eat until a stupor descends upon the room. Our feast is cheap -- basically the food of the shtetl. And all that's left in the end is (compostable) bones.

"You never know what is enough unless you know what is more than enough," wrote Blake. Now think celebration, not shopping. Because in spite -- no, because -- of the economic gloom, it is our duty, and can be our pleasure, to make the season as festive today as in the fattest times.

judith@judithlevine.com

Judith Levine is the author of "Not Buying It: My Year Without Shopping."