So this is Christmas

Here we are again. No parking at the Mall if you should need to go there - thank gawd I don't!! Everyone's begging for Money! Some have enough toys to run a Third World Country & still want more. Some aren't paying their bills this month but are out there buying electronics. Some can't buy enough groceries to feed their kids but the liquor cabinet is full. Some of us pander to our family's every want to get some peace on that one day a year. And some of us will still be paying off the bills from This Year at this time Next Year. I know people who work a second job to pay for all the STUFF they buy at Christmas & others who take their Holiday Pay early to buy for offspring who think money grows on trees. What is it about Social, Media & Commercial pressure to buy, buy, buy that creates the Mob Mentality to go into debt at this time of year???

Thanksgiving is a family holiday too but we don't go into spending frenzy mode. Has Television created this Monster? TV talks about Christmas & all the things we should be doing to Make it Bright even though the Politically Correct Police won't actually let us SAY Christmas in print fer gawd's sake !! Christmas Holiday is now Winter Holiday or Season's Holiday or Winter Break. Why aren't we calling it RED HOLIDAY?? Tis the Season to go deep, deeper, deepest into debt! No payments for 16 months!! Get it TODAY, Pay Later. Take it home, we'll work it out Next Year! No Money Down! Boxing WEEK Sales!!


Have you SEEN the oldie, It's a Wonderful Life?? Remember the tree?? And the decorations?? The Bonhomie?? I remember Christmas almost like that. We looked forward to it. We made a lot of the decorations, some were made in school - gasp, the horror of it!!! Mom made the wreath on the front door out of cedar branches. Dad put lights in the trees in the front yard. We got out decorations my mother inherited from HER mother & grandmother. We made snow decorations if we had snow. We made a lot of the gifts & we stuffed stockings with little things, special candy & toys. We baked. We packed tins with cookies, sausage rolls & tarts as gifts. We even made root beer. Families didn't go broke trying to satisfy every kid's wishes - although they tried hard to give us one special gift in with all the socks & pajamas. We looked forward to a week off, visiting family or friends & had a huge turkey dinner. It was a social time for whole neighborhoods. If we had enough snow & it was cold enough, our whole neighborhood would block off the steep hill & spend Christmas & Boxing Day sledding. One year, we had a huge dump of snow so we built IGLOOs. One of the parents sprinkled them inside & out with water so they'd freeze solid overnight. We played in them till spring!

The Silly Season has become an obligation to some. Loneliness & depression to others. Some people dread it. And it's Out of Control spending to still others. Instead of a Family, Community & Religious celebration - hey, no one said Santa is religious & we aren't even going into that - Christmas has become a Commercial Feeding Frenzy. The Media rules our desires, our wants & our needs right now & most of us don't even realize it. I say DOWN with MEDIA. Let's go back to a simple celebration. A simple celebration of all things good & giving for a change. Simple Human-ness. In the last 4000 years, we've morphed from celebrating the return of the Sun God out of the dark, the Winter Solstice to the Roman god Saturn in Saturnalia to Christianity to the New Gods of Desire & Debt. We never lost the green boughs, burning log, food & gifts from the earliest days but somehow they've taken over the celebration. It seems to me that Shopping has become the Celebration.