take a bunch of greedy retailers, throw in a plethora of people with credit cards and a mob mentality and what do you get? the worst day of the year for human behavior, in my opinion. it's just disgusting. i've been reading/hearing all day about stampedes happening at stores like victoria's secret, walmart (yuck!) target, you name it. for what? a television that costs $100 and is going to last about 1 year, if you're lucky? trust me, that's about all you're going to get out of it. and a few bruises, and a bad attitude, and yelled at, A LOT!
hubby and i did that for his former work establishment years ago. we stood in line, got run over, yelled at, grabbed at, the whole enchilada, all for a television to be given as a door prize at his company christmas party. the kicker? he was working that night, so he wasn't even eligible to enter and win. you had to be in attendance to win any of the door prizes. so we suffered through the cold, got stepped on, pushed, treated poorly, and he can't even win because he was deliberately scheduled to work that night. nice.
i just don't get the mob mentality, either. just because they see someone grab something, 20 other people have to grab the same thing, and then pushing, shoving, fights, you name it, break out. people get arrested, trampled, assaulted, hurt in various ways. stuff gets stolen out of cars just because someone didn't get what they "wanted" at a sale. it's just insane to me. it doesn't make sense. so we stay home. we don't leave the house, if we can help it on "black friday." and this year we're opting to support more local and small businesses. when we go out to eat, we try to avoid chain restaurants, simply for the fact that they don't treat their employees very well to begin with. and then, do you really know what you're getting? being married to someone who works in the restaurant business, you can imagine the horror stories i've heard about what "veal" and "scallops" really are at some restaurants. they aren't what you think you're eating. so, if we do go to a chain, it's one with a REALLY GOOD reputation for their food, and how they treat their people.
we've been talking to our daughter about wants and needs this year. still, when she wrote her letter to santa, it had 12 items on it. i haven't read it yet, so i can't say i'm proud or disappointed. but i thought we had done a better job getting the idea of necessity across to her. she doesn't want for anything. she's got a roof over her head, food in her belly, enough clothes, thanks to gram and gramps, to rival a supermodel, an education, two parents, living in the same house, still married to each other, that love her like crazy. she's got toys all over the place. there's nothing she's lacking, fundamentally. but she can still come up with a list of 12 things that she wants from santa. it makes me shake my head. i thought i did a better job. it actually hurts me inside, to think that i can't get the idea of simplicity and simple living explained and understood by her. she said something about what she thought she would get me for christmas this year, and i thought it was a great idea. green tea. i love green tea. and what a lovely, simple, caring thought! she gets the idea when she's GIVING, but not when it comes to GETTING gifts. i cry over the idea of a child not receiving a single present at christmas, yet i'm disgusted by how commercial it has become. i want to boycott the whole thing, but that wouldn't go over well with my family.
but what would they do if i chose to observe a religion that didn't observe christmas at all? that would certainly throw a monkey wrench in the whole situation, for sure. and i'm considering it. i won't go into details, because it's a personal choice, and it's been a very long journey to try to figure it out. but suffice to say, christmas isn't a holiday in that religion. we could do a small celebration, but if we do that, i want it to be ABOUT christmas. what it means, why we celebrate it at all. but then we could get into the church capitalizing on pagan holidays to get the pagans to assimilate to christianity. (that's a big one with hubby. he gets fired up over that one all the time. it was just a way to get pagans who were celebrating yule to "come to christ" if you will. leave your matriarchal religion for a patriarchal one, so men can tell you how to think, what to do, when to do it, who to love, who to hate and who to go to war against and kill. pagans were governed by nature, and more likely NOT to do things, as to not upset mother earth. as long as you didn't harm anyone, you could basically love who you wanted, live where you wanted, make a living in whatever manner you wanted, observe how you wanted. you just couldn't harm or kill another human being. even the killing of animals was ritualistic, as to not offend the "mother" aspect of the universe. maybe the pagans had it right. they didn't want to harm any one. it was a matriarchal society, agrarian based. christianity comes into vogue, the men take over, industry takes over and we've got the don drapers of the world selling us the newest, best, biggest, brightest version of whatever we don't need in the first place. but they're telling us our lives will be so incomplete without it.
can i go back in time and live in a hut and farm goats? it sounds like much more fun than black friday. *shudder*
I know you probably know this, but it's called Black Friday because that's the one day of the year that businesses could count on being in the "black," profit-wise.
ReplyDeleteI grew up poor. I mean POOR. And we didn't get a whole lot for Christmas. But the one thing I could do was helpfully write down things so that my parents had some ideas. I went through the old Seaars and Penney catalogues and marked about a hundred things. Then I'd carefully go through them again and in the end got the list down to between 10 and 15 things.
I knew I wasn't getting any of them. But it was fun. I was 7 or 8 and making a list brought me joy. I knew I was getting NOTHING on it, but it was fun making it all the same. I think if my parents had tried to stress the giving and not receiving thing, it would have fallen on deaf ears at Christmas.
That's a year-round concept, and while it's a great one, I don't know if kids that young can grasp the full weight of it. It's something that they have to see and get the message about year-round. I know you try to embody that.
Christmas is tough for kids. They have kids at school who get more, they are bombarded by our culture and material goods. And they're too young to know that what they are seeing are commercials so that people will buy the products and live happier lives. (My tongue is firmly in my cheek.) Kids sometimes don't get the difference. They just want what everyone else has.
Just look back at your own Christmases and take the best bits of that day and tradition and shower your kid with that. Sure, the holidays should be about giving. But every day could be like that. And the holidays are suposed to be special, with trees and carols and yes, as an adult it makes little sense and is commercial. And patriarchal systems do suck, but kids don't know that yet.
What I mostly wanted for Christmas was for everybody in my damn family to be happy for a day or two. And usually, around Christmas, we were.
I'm rambling and babbling here. I just think kids should be kids and get to rip the paper off of some presents on Christmas Day without it being about sacrifice and all of that, which has a place and comes later. Small doses of it at this age and this holiday will go far.
My two pence. Take it or leave it.
Jan, I understand the gut punch reaction to Black Friday. I have felt strongly about avoiding it since... forever. I am also careful not to equate black friday shoppers with Christians. Most Christians I know personally choose to celebrate Christmas as a solemn christian celebration. Low key, family, friends, good old fashioned stuff. Most of the people you see in the news, I imagine, are greedy bargain hunters getting crapola for themselves. We don't let our kids get carried away with the "I want" stuff that runs rampant this time of year. We have them make a list but they know that they will not get much. We tried the "3 gifts just like Jesus" for years. Now we label the gifts "something you want, something you need, something fun and something to read". That works well for preparing their expectations. And the stocking is the "something fun". There are ways to have a low key, christian (or whatever) Christmas. Don't blame Olivia for expecting what the tv tells her. You have to lovingly tell her what to expect. I know this comment is all over the map, but I hope it makes sense.
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