If you do decide that shopping is the answer, you'll be set to save a lot in the coming weeks of post-holiday markdowns. Due to an unusually bad holiday season for retailers -- with sales down 19% to 21% for apparel, and 26% for electronics -- stores are making huge markdowns and coming up with creative ways to rid shelves of merchandise. Retailers are bundling goods, offering a free wingchair with a couch, for instance, and every incarnation of buy one-get one free imaginable.

With analysts worrying about whether it's possible to "retrain the consumer to pay full price," it's certain that consumers are in a good place. Don't be retrained, people! Embrace your obstinacy in this post-holiday please-let-it-be-a-recovery markdown period.

Once upon a time, I was the sort of girl who believed in "retail therapy." When I was particularly sad, I would get in my cushy SUV and drive to the mall (I was living in Northern Virginia at the time so my mall of choice was the lux Tysons Corner), and charge $300 or $400 worth of fabulously beautiful clothes.

Times have changed, and not just because I don't drive any more (I rock the bus and bike) and cut up all my credit cards years ago. We're all making our way toward a less-spendy future, one where we need to look elsewhere for our therapy.

Last week, much of the country was snowed in, and Portland, Oregon, where I live, was an unusual participant in the snow follies. While many shops remained open, we just couldn't get to them, and so I was faced with a Christmas where I was largely unable to go shopping.

Rev. Billy and the Church of Stop Shopping declared victory over greedy consumerism this Black Friday. For years this self-styled street preacher has been trying to get would-be shoppers to celebrate "Buy Nothing Day" the day after Thanksgiving instead of marching to the malls. This year, he says, the idea seems to be catching on.

Rev. Billy reported to a crowed gathered in Manhattan's Union Square that he turned up at Macy's flagship store on 34th Street early this morning and found far fewer eager shoppers than in years past. Every year he and the Stop Shopping Choir sing at Americans to "Start to Stop Shopping." That's an acknowledgment that we all shop too much and face a perpetual battle against greed and materialism. Rev. Billy dresses like a preacher and treats shopping as just one more sin that is tempting but to be avoided.


Rev. Billy is no fool and knows it's the recession and not his ragtag choir that is persuading us to stop shopping. But it is the end of an era--an era of being told shopping is patriotic, an era of false prosperity and an era of ignoring overwhelming personal and government debt. All to buy things we want, but don't really need.