It's buy nothing day. Having been freed from the tyranny of Christmas a number of years ago by a combination of my mother's death and my own growing desires for social justice and disgust with corporate capitalism, I am happy to extend the same liberty to anyone else sick of feeling forced to spend money on crap for people who need nothing. You can even get gift exemption vouchers at the Adbusters website.

Me, I just tell people I don't do Christmas anymore. Hell, I don't believe in the whole Christ thing, so it's kind of weird to celebrate the holiday dummied up in his honor. And if people give me something, that's swell. It's none of my business whether people gift me or not. But I've got no obligatory gift in the trunk to whip out just in case. I don't give anything out of guilt anymore and it's not my problem if you only give to me because you expect something in return. That's not a gift. That's an obligation.

I do tend to bake cookie bars and pass them around, and one year a terminally ill friend could not get her family to put up a tree for her, so I went over and did it. Seemed reasonable. But no hitting the mall, no mailing those tedious cards, no making a list, no spending what I can't afford, no trying to think of what to get you because I feel I have to get you something. I don't.

You think this sounds harsh? If we have to demonstrate our love for each other by going to WalMart, we are in real, real deep trouble, people.