Photo: zemlinki on Flickr.

When I think about the things for which I’m grateful to my parents, somewhere below “teaching me how to read at age 4” and “demonstrating all the ways in which evangelical dogma fails so I never have to try it myself” falls “not letting me go shopping on Boxing Day.” Always my father’s family has convened on December 26 for more turkey and an uproarious game of re-gifting. Never have I set foot in a mall on the mall’s busiest day of the year. Thinking about the people who do, I wonder if they’ve ever tried saying “mall’s busiest day of the year” out loud to themselves. Guessing not.

At home, in the city, there are Boxing Day sales everywhere and I don’t think I exaggerate. I bet your 7/11 has one (selected sour candies just 4 CENTS EACH, TODAY ONLY) and your dry cleaner’s probably offering 20% off next-day cranberry sauce removal (15% if the stain’s on white mohair; ouch) and if you ask your local art dealer, she’s giving free champagne and handjobs with every purchase over $38,000.

I’m all for supporting local businesses and you know I like to shop (alone, and desperately), but there must come a day when we look around and think “what are we going to do with all this stuff when the zombies come?” You’d imagine that day would immediately follow the day on which you receive fuzzy socks, inspirational novels, and a refurbished bagelmaker. And yet. Like waking up in hunger pains the morn after a six-hour casserole buffet, we roll over on Boxing Day and groan moooooore.

I say enough. With apologies to our esteemed culture editor Chris Randle, whom I have instructed to go to Jonathan & Olivia today because he wants to buy significantly less-overpriced denim, and who will do anything I say because he’s nice and I’m not, you are a sucker if you shop today. You are a sad, sad, probably still-drunk hashbrain if you think there is anything you can buy out there that’s worth the carnage you will face. Girls/women especially, because girls/women are the primary target of the 89 (!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!?) emails I’ve received about Boxing Day sales: if you even consider stepping foot inside a house of material worship, you are a fool. A beautiful little fool.

But what if there is something I didn’t get for Christmas that I really really really deserve? you plead, and at that point, I say sit down and think for 20 minutes about the meaning of the word “deserve.” Then I’m like, look. Everybody knows these sales don’t end on Boxing Day no matter what the sign/tweet/email/skywriting says. What’s marked down never goes back up. It’s just physics. So, BRILLIANT PLAN: we all stay the fuck home today. The stores languish. The shopkeepers hate me. I know. But then Boxing Day will be over, the sales will still be there—don’t worry, no one wins this modern arms race if we don’t shop—and we’ve had a whole day to make bagels and mull over the waste-heap of our spending. If there’s still something we think we need, we have at least had some time for the thinking part.

Sarah Nicole Prickett is the style editor at Toronto Standard. Follow her on Twitter (if you dare) at @xoxSNP.