The Reason for the Season

It is Christmas time again, the time for Peace on Earth, Joy, and Love for all Mankind. And Road Rage. And Debt. And fighting over that special item that there is only 1 of in the county and, Danggit, your kid is going to have it!

Why is it that all you have to do is mention Christmas shopping, and all common sense completely disappears? People will spend hours in a mall wearing out a credit card buying expensive gifts for people they barely know, but they will not spare a dollar's worth of change for the bell ringers by the door?

We hear, "Remember the Reason for the Season" and hear Christmas carols praising God and announcing the Birth of Christ, and we might even sing along with them, but the words are just words to us. We are too caught up in the search for the perfect gift or some other such garbage. Do we really think Jesus cares whether or not your Mother-in-Law gets a cashmere sweater for His birthday?

Most of the time, the thing most people would prefer to get would be the money you spent on the gift they don't want or need. All of us, and I do mean every single person, have more crap laying around the house than we care to admit. And I would be willing to guess that if you opened up that back closet that you only use for storage, you would find several items that were given to you at Christmas. We spend hundreds of dollars every year swapping crap.

Instead of buying hundreds of dollars worth of future yard sale fodder in Jesus's Name, why not take the money you would have spent and donate it to cancer research? Instead of buying 2 games for your child's new gaming system, only buy 1 and give the other $50 to a community charity. Or buy $50 worth of food for the food bank. Or buy blankets for the homeless shelter.

Or...spend the time you would have spent Christmas shopping and volunteer!

If we are truly celebrating the Birth of Christ and all He teaches us, do what he wants us to do! Give to those less fortunate. Help those in need. Give joyfully of ourselves. Spend time with friends and family. Celebrate God's love for us and be joyful!

It isn't about who gets the biggest present or who spends the most money. And it most certainly isn't about the corporate profits.

Christmas is about loving and giving. Joyfully and without hesitation.

The more things change...

Well, the election is over, my hand is healing, and the leaves are falling from the trees. And change is in the air, on many different levels.

We the People have shown the Powers That Be that we didn't like the way they were doing business on our behalf and fired a good many of them. What that means for the future is anyone's guess. It could be that we will be hopelessly gridlocked and nothing will get done. Or it could mean that we will have a brand new set of problems. No one can predict the future, but it will be a change, regardless.

I finally got that club of a bandage off of my hand. Now I am in a brace full time, except for bathing, and I start physical therapy on Monday. Should be interesting how that goes. I am fairly certain that I will be in the brace at least until after Thanksgiving. The brace bugs me, but it is still better than the bandage. My hand is still peeling from that thing. So that is another change, hopefully for the better this time.

And Fall is falling. The days are getting shorter and cooler. High school and college football are starting to wind up their seasons. Most folks are starting to think about Christmas gifts and special meals with family and friends. The harvests are done. I have been doing some of my shopping online so I don't have to fight the crowds or the weather. We don't have a lot of gifts to buy anyway, but at least online, I can find the best prices and actually get something unique and not the same old stuff the local stores offer. I am not able to make gifts like I have in the past because of my hand, but that is OK. There is always next year.

So, change is coming. For good or bad.

Why I hate shopping

I had to take my daughter shopping last night for a Secret Santa thing they do on the Newspaper staff at her school. A small gift every day for a week with a bigger gift ($5) on Friday. The kid she was supposed to buy for has been in the hospital for 2 weeks with histoplasmosis. She doesn't know him that well, and he wasn't there to write down the stuff that he liked/wanted, so she is having to wing it.

So after I drop off my son at scouts, we go to the Mass Merchandiser to try and find something for him. We walk around looking at all of the crap on the shelves, realize that it is all crap, and wind up getting a Pez dispenser and some assorted candy. She will be giving him a can of Pepsi one day as well. We decided that for the Friday gift, I will just make up a candy/cookie tray. Lame, I know, but at least it is heartfelt. For the Monday gift from her Secret Santa, she got a tube of chapstick. Kinda makes you wonder just how seriously these kids take it.

Anyway, there is just nothing out there is in the wide world of shopping that I either want or need. I have what I need already. Looking at the shelves in the stores just depresses me. Over priced, cheaply made, over packaged, and much much over advertised crap.

If someone actually wanted to get me something I would like, get me a side of Beef. That, I could use. Granted, it wouldn't be terribly practical to wrap and put under the tree, but you could always wrap it and put it in the freezer with a note under the tree.

It just seems that merchandisers are trying so hard to get every last dime from consumers, that they over look the need for quality. And the manufacturers that do believe in quality price their stuff so far out of the range of the normal consumer as to be a joke. So again, we are just bombarded with crap and told to like it. Well, I won't do it!

No more cheap, plastic, slave labor, Chinese, mass marketed crap will be bought by me. I will be looking for small businesses that produce American goods from American materials to stock my home. I will not be supporting MegaMart in their efforts to destroy small town America, I will not be supporting the Chinese government in their efforts to infiltrate the United States through our Capitalist greed, I will not bow down to the advertising agencies and spend more than my income for a holiday that is supposed to promote Peace, Love, and the birth of a Holy Child.

This Christmas, I am going to make it about caring, not about money. The few gifts I have to buy will be meaningful instead of pricey. It isn't about how many gifts, or how much they cost, but what that gift will mean to the person who gets it.

I am done with the shopping just because it is Christmas.