Buy Nothing Day Coat Exchange, from Mary Grady's excellent Natural News Network blog.

10th Annual BUY NOTHING DAY WINTER COAT EXCHANGE FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 23 10AM-2PM STATE HOUSE LAWN

Rain/snow site: St. Patrick’s School, 244 Smith St.
Pawtucket Location: 175 Main St, Rain or shine
In Newport: St Paul’s Church, 12 Marlborough St
in Wakefield: St. Francis Church, 114 High St.

If you need a winter coat, please come get one. If you can donate a coat, we know someone who could use it.

Buy Nothing Day is the anti-Black Friday, so named because this starting pistol on the holiday shopping frenzy is supposed to send retailers' ledgers into the black. The protest, begun by Vancouver anti-consumerist magazine Adbusters in 1992, has spawned a Buy Something Day counterprotest, but its site is in Swedish.

Shopping is not one of the duties of citizenship. I have enough stuff and, while I'll equip the younger folks for the year, I'm out of the mall race. Socks and underwear is all my husband wants this year. Me, too.

Libraries are open tomorrow -- if you're off work like me, why not borrow a book, then curl up with a turkey sandwich and read?