Since the 1980s, the Friday after the American holiday Thanksgiving has been promoted by retailers as a VERY profitable scheme to get shoppers to brick-and-mortar as well as online stores. Popularly known as “Black Friday” because the shopping day after Thanksgiving is the day many merchants books shift from the red of debt to the black of profit, the day has taken on sacred significance in a world that worships wealth.
Though founded in The States, Black Friday, is deepening capitalisms’s hold on the world by seeping into places like The Netherlands, a country that does not celebrate Thanksgiving nor has the last Friday in November off for shopping shenanigans.
Packaged as “family fun”and “Christmas shopping,” just because it is familiar doesn’t mean we have to find fun or associate faith with the frenzy that ultimately lines the pockets of the few while driving millions into debt.
This year, I’m inviting y’all to observe a Green Friday instead of Black Friday with 12 ideas for flora and fauna fun.
1. Plant bulbs! Whether it’s tulips, jonquils or irises, fall is the perfect time to plant bulbs to ensure a colorful spring.
2. Host a nature scavenger hunt.
3. Invite friends and family to bring a those decorative gourds over and put on a neighborhood a gourd hunt (like an egg hunt, only with a bit more pumpkin spice).
4. Build a bug hotel or hedgehog house to help small critters find gezzelig homes over the long winter.
5. Go for a nice long walk, mobile device on silent, and get to know the nature beings in your neighborhood. What might you notice about their preparations for winter?
6. Make some cool land art! I am partial to mandala-inspired creations or leafy labyrinths, but you might be inspired to make something wilder.
7. Make a winter-greens wreath for your door or table (or for a gift). If you follow a Christian calendar, the Sunday after Thanksgiving is the first Sunday of Advent and Friday could be the perfect day to collect all you need for a natural Advent wreath.
8. Find a Forest Bathing guide in your area and sign up for a walk.
9. If snow already blankets the world outside your window, make some bird-food decorations and add them to a nearby tree.
10. Bring the forest inside by building a terrarium or other tiny micro-ecosystem.
11. Host a Bob Ross painting party!
12. Make a gratitude garden.
What activities would you add?
