BLACK (spot on the season) FRIDAY
R’s nephew was working from midnight to 7am last night. My neighbor spent yesterday evening plotting out the sales that she would target in a specific, calculating order beginning at 5am. Some begin even earlier, but her husband was requiring a dose of rational thinking in her shopping day…
Black Friday in my mind is a plague on the true spirit of the holidays. There is something very distasteful, greedy and wanton in the eyes of many shoppers today. I would much rather shop on a non-sale day, mulling thru the stores thinking about those I’m buying for. Yes, I’ll pay a little more, but somewhere in my mind there will be a peace and a yesterday-year reflection on the reason I’m out shopping in the first place. In the day perhaps I’ll even find time to buy little extra things (toys or warm coats) and take them by a local charity or firehouse for the Toys for Tots program.
To be honest, I’m so disgusted at the shopping headlines on the news this morning that I want to forego shopping altogether and turn our holiday into a completely altruistic experience this year. I’d like to spend the day giving out holiday packages and watching the joy on someone else’s face just getting the bare necessities to make a family gathering possible. I’d like to celebrate my holiday with only what they would: a little food and lots of love.
This morning in my email, I have 27 advertisements for sales going on today and one email from our church. It was surprisingly easy to delete those 27 emails to get at what really mattered…
We’re going to a “hanging of the greens” festival next weekend with our community members. We’re all bringing a pot of our favorite soup for a simple soup dinner. We’ll wrap presents for the homeless clients that will be staying at our church the following week. We’ll sing carols and make christmas ornaments. In the room, because of all of those beautiful souls, the holiday spirit will mingle among us.
This time of year, I wonder if in the hustle and bustle to get the best deal, buy all the presents, do all the things that we want to do we forget that there are people all around us. There are relationships worth investing in, family worth loving, friends worth reconnecting with, and love worth living.
Black Friday, holiday spirit, shopping, relationships
November 25th, 2006 at 1:08 am
I usually hide on Black Friday. This year I’ve got the uber-cold, so it was even easier to hide.