Rev. Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping protesting at the NYC Disney Store in August of this year.

I spent my Thanksgiving holidays in New York City this year. Our Thanksgiving dinner was not our traditional turkey gluttony because we were visiting my cousin and her newborn baby and a huge feast was just not logistically possible in her tiny kitchen and with the demands of a baby. Still, we were together (MaxMarginal's mom recommended a great little bistro that even pleased my finicky aunt), we enjoyed ourselves immensely and that's what the holidays are about, right?

But it was another kind of the deadly sins that caught my family's attention after Thanksgiving: the avarice of Black Friday. Walking back to our hotel from the Upper West Side, my children noticed that there were far more people camping out at the Best Buy and Macy's than were there for the Thanksgiving Day parade. Walmart proudly announced in TV ads that they would open at 4 am (!!!) for shoppers. Ads for JCPenneys/Kohls/Kmart/Sears were similarly emblazoned with promises of great deals for those willing to forfeit sleep for shopping.

Now I know that we need to spend to stimulate the economy, but this adulation to conspicuous consumption even made my "gimme gimme" youngsters a little sick. I'm not as far over as to subscribe to the BuyNothingChristmas; my kids will have a few presents to open under the tree. But nothing that would require me to brave the malls in the wee hours of the morning, nor enable virtual slave labor in third world countries for the sake of our vanity. However, one of the things I insist my kids do every year is make gifts for family. One year we made hundreds of truffles and packaged them prettily. Another year, we made personalized ornaments. Another year were decorated coupons for chores and good deeds. The point is that they have to do something, not purchase something, which is the way I prefer to focus my attention on Black Friday.

What do you for the holidays to get yourselves in the spirit?

And on a semi-related note, Huffington Post has put together a list of 15 toys that you should never, and I do mean never, consider purchasing for your child. Like the Death Wish Elmo:

Yeah, that gets me in the holiday mood, how about you? For more, see Mike Mozart's FAILToys YouTube Channel.

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(When the collective psyche was overrun by Pokemon)

Only ten years ago - the Friday after Thanksgiving 1999. In retrospect, not much has changed, if you discount the Christmas ads starting just before Halloween, the lines forming in front of shopping malls and Walmarts before midnight - the twenty-four hour shopping, the conspicuous consumption, the unemployment, the numbers of bankrupt stores.

No, in 1999 it was considered an event, the real conspicuous consumption would take place ten days before Christmas as it always had. In 1999 consumer confidence was high, the stock market was barreling towards 10,000 and online shopping was a nice idea, but would never replace good ol' retail.

Lou Miliano (CBS News): “This is no longer the busiest shopping day over recent years. Most purchasing has been done ten days prior to Christmas. This has become more of an event. And with unemployment down and stock prices up and consumer confidence strong, retailers are hoping it’s an event that leads to a 5-6% increase in sales.”

Black Friday hadn't been invented yet - the world was dealing with Pokemon and the dreaded Y2K, just around the corner.

Times change, and in strange ways.

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November 26, 2009 CNN

REV. BILLY TALEN, "THE CHURCH OF LIFE AFTER SHOPPING": Well, we celebrate buying nothing day. Black Friday changes. It's a miracle to buy nothing day. We urge people to slow down their shopping.

JOHNS: A lot of people are going to buy nothing this year, given the economy and all.

TALEN: Well, sadly, there's a lot of pain and suffering out there. But some of those people that are jobless and broke and so many of us are finding new ways to celebrate Christmas, Hanukkah and Kwanza this year.

JOHNS: And, you know, there are people out there who would say the responsible thing to do would be to tell people to go shopping, go ahead, spend your money. I think the president sort of has suggested that before. Why not tell people in a bad economy, spend your money, get the economy revved up and going again.

TALEN: I agree with what you just said. It is a bad economy. It can't be a shopping economy. Not 70 percent. And that's what it's been for the last several years. And that's just not working. We're trying to shop our way out of this economy to a new level of shopping. That's not working. We can't just be a debtor nation anymore. We can't just be full of cheap stuff everywhere made in sweat shops thousands of miles away with fossil fuel everywhere, plastics everywhere, and credit cards and everybody in debt. We can't continue that. So we're looking for an alternative.

JOHNS: So what's the relevance, though, really? If you're telling people stop shopping, and they've already stopped, what's your point, I guess?

TALEN: You stop shopping, but start giving. That's what the holidays are for. The good way to do that is to find your gift locally. Walk to your gift this year and buy it there. Buy it from an independent shop on your main street, in your neighborhood, in your community.

There's probably no more dangerous place on the planet than being positioned between marauding shoppers and their objects of desire on the morning of Black Friday -- as one unfortunate man discovered today:

A worker died after being trampled and a woman miscarried when hundreds of shoppers smashed through the doors of a Long Island Wal-Mart Friday morning, witnesses said.

The unidentified worker, employed as an overnight stock clerk, tried to hold back the unruly crowds just after the Valley Stream store opened at 5 a.m.

Witnesses said the surging throngs of shoppers knocked the man down. He fell and was stepped on. As he gasped for air, shoppers ran over and around him.

"He was bum-rushed by 200 people," said Jimmy Overby, 43, a co-worker. "They took the doors off the hinges. He was trampled and killed in front of me. They took me down too...I literally had to fight people off my back."

Maybe it's time for people to start getting some perspective on "holiday bargains." Because this is just sick.

Of course, we are supporters of avoiding this madness altogether by supporting Buy Nothing Day.