The Conundrum of Christmas

-
I love Christmas. I love the music, the decorations, the baking, the traditions. I love how the world seems more giving and more forgiving. Society turns to service and goodwill to all men. Jesus Christ becomes more important and religion is more acceptable even to atheists.

I'm not a scrooge, but I am beginning to dislike Christmas immensely. The store displays have skipped right over Thanksgiving (I guess not many people actually decorate for this holiday) and are already piping Christmas music to all departments. The infamous Black Friday has apparently started already. Retailers are doing all in their power to get people spending money right now. I get it. The economy has hurt them as much as it has affected individual lives. But I feel pushed into buying things I don't want or need. Gift giving has become an expectation rather than a delightful surprise.

I know I'm not the only one who is noticing this and I have a friend who is so discouraged that she has put her dog in charge of shopping for presents. It's an idea to be considered.

I want to go back to the simpler times. When gifts were homemade or acts of service. When all that was expected from extended family was a Christmas Card with perhaps a family photo. I have no need to keep up with the Jones and all things considered, my children have the important things and don't need the distractions of the latest gaming system, their own television set, or a stocking filled with trinkets which will end up broken, lost, or discarded within a week. Giving gifts just to have something under the tree seems unnecessary and unreasonable.

Guess it's time to pull out the cookbook and the sewing machine and get to simplifying Christmas.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Misery Loves Company

-
I consider myself a fairly upbeat person.  I believe that most people are innately good and are not always looking out for number one.  I tend to trust - maybe overly so - people at their word.  Negativity in others irritates me; in myself causes self-deprecation.  I try really hard to not let the little things get to me and I consider most things little.  Life is too short to be miserable. I know that everybody has bad moments, trials, tribulations, and poor luck.  How we deal with these moments often determines how well those moments turn out in the end and how long the moment affects us.  When we attempt to shoulder the burdens alone, we are dragged longer and deeper into despair. When we share our frustrations with others, we find unexpected ideas and methods for coping and possibly solving the problem. "Others" may be a licensed therapist, a certified counselor, a degreed professional.  Some problems need that kind of company.  Most of the time we just need a friend wi
Read more

Hump Day

-
Compared to yesterday, today was relatively quiet. I got Nick's and the girls' rooms cleaned up. I also made some headway on some of my school work and finally got my classroom observation scheduled for this course. The public schools have half days tomorrow and Friday so with Aaron home to watch the girls, I can go observe a science lesson at the charter school. I've been trying to actually make healthy dinners without too much leftover. Monday we ended up finally throwing out a bunch of leftovers that just were not getting eaten. We had one pot of what had started out as beef chunks over rice. Over the weeks, leftover veggies, meat, and potatoes had gotten added to the mix. So even on the days is was being eaten, it ended up gaining more than was consumed. In my defense, it was not me who added the additional stuff to the pot. Yesterday I experimented with pork chops. I took the boneless chops, rolled them in italian seasoning, sliced them down the middle, but not all the
Read more

The Jane Austen Book Club

-
This book by Karen Fowler is about a group of 5 women and 1 man who meet together to discuss the various Jane Austen novels. However, do not expect to learn anything more about the actual novels by reading this book. Instead, the reader learns about relationships of six people whose interest in Jane Austen is the least of their commonalities. At the end of the novel, the author does include a brief summary of each of the novels discussed at the book club and a number of responses from friends and family of Ms. Austen regarding her various books. Personally, I felt that any author who has to convince readers of another author's greatness is better off not writing at all. The ladies in the novel disdain any who watch the movies rather than read the Austen novels and are critical of those who actually enjoy the movies or prefer them to the novels. Having both read some of Austen's novels and watched the movies, I can feel the disdain already. Nevertheless, I admit to not being an
Read more