Photo by Katie Rainbow 🏳️‍🌈 on Unsplash

I’ve never been a big fan of Black Friday. I really objected to the days when stores used to open Thanksgiving evening, which I just thought was terrible for the workers, but I think that died with COVID and hasn’t returned, thank goodness. And I never believed the story that it wasn’t until the end of November that stores finally turned a profit (were “in the black,” or when accountants switched from recording everything in red ink to indicate a loss and black ink to show a profit). How was our entire economy supposed to work if most stores were in debt 11 out of 12 months?. I did some research, and according to History.com, I was right. There were several uses associated with Black Friday, all negative, so I don’t really want to go into them. Apparently after years of trying to get people to switch to “Big Friday” for shopping on the day after Thanksgiving, which completely failed, someone came up with this lovely story to “rebrand” the name.

With my history of not liking Black Friday, I like it even less knowing it is a manipulative “myth” (my poliite term for LIE) developed by marketers to mislead American consumers. So I hope this year you will join me in something I think it a little more festive: Rainbow Friday.

Now, I am building this idea on top of a concept started in the UK in 2021 by Holly Tucker. Apparently even though they don’t have Thanksgiving in England, their stores and marketing campaigns have jumped on the Black Friday bandwagon. Holly Tucker started a campaign called Colour Friday, urging people to spend their money that day on small, local businesses, rather than getting sucked up in the giant corporate Black Friday mega-marketing. Here is a video describing this year’s plans for Colour Friday:

I’m calling it Rainbow Friday because I have a goal for my Christmas shopping that is related to my response to the recent US Presidential election (if you want to understand the reference, please read my recent post, I’m Ready to Talk About the Election…Are You? But the rainbow is kind of my metaphor for standing up for things that I support that the incoming administration doesn’t seem to.)

Now, I’ve have long been not only an advocate, but a devotee, of buying Christmas presents from small local businesses. Regular readers will be shocked, I’m sure, to find out one of my primary places for buying Christmas presents is our local Farmers Markets. Cary alone, let alone all of the other communities in Triangle NC, also has a few major craft shows during the year, and those are another primary location for me to purchase my holiday gifts. I frequent many local businesses, and I even make a number of my own presents.

However, this year I’m going to pursue an audacious goal. Can I get all of my Christmas gifts from local sources? I don’t know, but I’m going to try.

With the not-my-preferred party in charge of the US Presidency, US House, US Senate, and Supreme Court, it is easy to get discourged and feel helpless and unable to make a difference or have your voice heard. But one of the greatest powers you still have is the power of your purse. What if we all tried to spend Rainbow Friday giving our money to small, local, often-struggling merchants instead of to the millionaires who can’t wait to for the new Administration to give them more tax cuts?

For example, in my Election post, I discussed how upset I was that Jeff Bezos vetoed The Washington Post’s decision to endorse the Harris/Walz ticket (again, read the post above if you don’t know about all this). So why would I want even ONE PENNY of my money to go to his major source of wealth, which is Amazon. I’ve never been a big Amazon user, and have never had a paid Amazon Prime account. But honestly, I’ve probably bought some things each year from Amazon to give as presents, especially for the men in my life who are harder to buy for at craft fairs. But I’m vowing not to buy ANYTHING from Amazon this year. And I’m seeing if I can’t find find other smaller, local or at least regional companies to get stuff from instead of the mega corporations.

I’m not saying everything I buy this year will be locally produced. My family are all total book fanatics, so some of my presents will be books, which are generally printed by big corporations. But I’m buying them from our major local independent bookstore, Quail Ridge Books, rather than from Amazon, which I have sometimes done in the past. And yes, they will be more expensive than ordering from Amazon (I’ve checked). Quail Ridge Books has higher expenses because they maintain an actual, physical shop (Nirvana to us book lovers who like to puruse books before making our purchases), plus they can’t buy at the volume that Amazon does, and so they pay more for their books. But those of us who love books and want to keep them in business have to be support them with our dollars, not just our words or heart emojis. I just hope it gives extra value to the gift recipients as well (since a lot of my friends are book and bookstore lovers). I can almost guarantee you that I will get at least one book from an independent bookstore from one of my brothers, because even as children, we all loved getting books and Christmas afternoon were usually spent diving into one of the books we received that day rather than playing with our new toys.

We will see if I can stick to a totally local-based present plan. I will do the best I can. But a common saying in the West usually derived from a quote by Voltaire is “The perfect is the enemy of the good.” I’ll do the best I can, but even if I can only do 80% local and 20% megacorp, that’s better than 20% local and 80% megacorp.

Most importantly, I think I can find great local gifts that will please my giftees, support my local community, and make me feel conscious and empowered about how I am using my Christmas gift budget. And how great is that? It’s a Christmas gift to myself and to my community.

If you would like to join me in this Rainbow Friday movement, even if you set a lower goal (if you haven’t been a local buyer, 25% of your presents being local could be a stretch), let me know in the comments alone. And moving forward, please remember that one of the powers you do have, even if the other party has the political majority, is the power of your pocketbook.