All I hear about is black Friday. Well, not just black Friday, but Thursday, small business Saturday and Cyber Monday. The quest being how far can we stretch the spending binge ? As long as you are " saving " money it is acceptable to go into debt or spend more than you can afford. That seems to be the message. The primary message being how happy you will make others by giving expensive gifts, cheap ! Now there is a holiday concept even Scrooge would agree with. Yes, even as we hear the outcries of raising the minimum wage so we can survive, the louder voices say spend,spend,spend ! I may not be able to feed my family or afford health care but I can get a 75" flat screen television for a bargain ! If I don't work I can camp out in front of Walmart for two weeks and wait for the bargains ! Or, I can sleep in and save thousands of dollars by buying a new car for Christmas ! Tis the season of saving.
I don't know but this year this seems to be more of an annoyance than past years. Maybe it is just that I am getting older. Maybe it is because of current events. Whatever the cause, it is bothering me. Is stuff that important ? I mean it just appears that we as a society are becoming so self centered and needy. We will not show five minutes of patience for an elderly person in the checkout line, but would sit for a week to save a hundred dollars. All of this consumerism. All these sales are just smoke screens and mirrors. If they can afford to sell these products at these prices now, they could do so at anytime. I refuse to believe they are losing money on these products. I hear much talk in opposition to corporate America. Walmart and the big retailers treating their workers unfairly. The same people complaining about those retailers are lined up outside the doors ! Just how hypocritical is that ?
Well, it is a real shame but there is little one can do. Trying to change an attitude is a very difficult proposition. We all know the meaning of Christmas and that it has slowly been replaced by gifts. The amount of gift giving has become proportional to the " joy " of the season. That is the message corporate America has been projecting forever. Yet, even as we know that, we continue. Why are we so afraid that those we love would abandon us if we don't give them stuff ? Why do we feel the need to prove that ? As Sheldon Cooper of the big band theory would say, it is the social convention. Isn't that the truth of it ? It is what is expected. And sadly, we all want stuff. That is true of all of us. Ideally, we would not care an iota about this manufactured social custom of gift exchanging. That is however an ideal and one that does not exist. We are humans. But maybe we could begin to scale it back just a little bit. There are those in society that want to abandon God and remove his presence from our society. What is Christmas ? Remove that and why give gifts ? Those protesting God don't want to hear that part of it though. Noooo, let the Black Friday shopping continue ! Bargains,bargains,bargains. Hypocrites ! Yeah, it is all about the Jingle !! And I don't mean Santa Claus.
I don't know but this year this seems to be more of an annoyance than past years. Maybe it is just that I am getting older. Maybe it is because of current events. Whatever the cause, it is bothering me. Is stuff that important ? I mean it just appears that we as a society are becoming so self centered and needy. We will not show five minutes of patience for an elderly person in the checkout line, but would sit for a week to save a hundred dollars. All of this consumerism. All these sales are just smoke screens and mirrors. If they can afford to sell these products at these prices now, they could do so at anytime. I refuse to believe they are losing money on these products. I hear much talk in opposition to corporate America. Walmart and the big retailers treating their workers unfairly. The same people complaining about those retailers are lined up outside the doors ! Just how hypocritical is that ?
Well, it is a real shame but there is little one can do. Trying to change an attitude is a very difficult proposition. We all know the meaning of Christmas and that it has slowly been replaced by gifts. The amount of gift giving has become proportional to the " joy " of the season. That is the message corporate America has been projecting forever. Yet, even as we know that, we continue. Why are we so afraid that those we love would abandon us if we don't give them stuff ? Why do we feel the need to prove that ? As Sheldon Cooper of the big band theory would say, it is the social convention. Isn't that the truth of it ? It is what is expected. And sadly, we all want stuff. That is true of all of us. Ideally, we would not care an iota about this manufactured social custom of gift exchanging. That is however an ideal and one that does not exist. We are humans. But maybe we could begin to scale it back just a little bit. There are those in society that want to abandon God and remove his presence from our society. What is Christmas ? Remove that and why give gifts ? Those protesting God don't want to hear that part of it though. Noooo, let the Black Friday shopping continue ! Bargains,bargains,bargains. Hypocrites ! Yeah, it is all about the Jingle !! And I don't mean Santa Claus.
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