If you’re living in Canada, you can avoid today’s shopping craziness, which in the U.S. is known as “Black Friday” — the day-after-Thanksgiving, start-of-the-Christmas-shopping-season, mega-sale shopping day.

Here in Canada, it’s just a regular work day.

But if you want to take the no-shopping thing one step further, today is Buy Nothing Day.

Originally conceived by Vancouver artist and activist Ted Dave (here’s a brief history of Buy Nothing Day) and now promoted by the Vancouver-based Adbusters organization, Buy Nothing Day is an international protest against consumerism.

As Adbusters says, “There’s only one way to avoid the collapse of this human experiment of ours on Planet Earth: we have to consume less.”

From the Adbusters’ website:

We’re asking tens of millions of people around the world to bring the capitalist consumption machine to a grinding – if only momentary – halt.

We want you to not only stop buying for 24 hours, but to shut off your lights, televisions and other nonessential appliances. We want you to park your car, turn off your phones and log off of your computer for the day.

We’re calling for a Ramadan-like fast. From sunrise to sunset we’ll abstain en masse, not only from holiday shopping, but from all the temptations of our five-planet lifestyles.

In Canada, there are Buy Nothing Day events in Guelph (ON) and Montreal, but you don’t need to go to an event to honor the day — you can just stay home!

Want to know more? See Adbusters’ Buy Nothing Day Campaign or check out the Facebook Buy Nothing Day event.