If you’re anything like me, you’ve noticed that every year the Christmas season seems to start earlier and earlier. What used to really kick off the day after Thanksgiving a.k.a. Black Friday (as it should, in my humble opinion) is now starting just as Halloween hits us with all its costumes and scary stories. The scary part to me, however, is that we are losing sight of a couple very important things.
What It’s All About
Christmas, while known as the Season of Giving, is not all about giving presents or – as it would seem it has become – more importantly, about getting them. Christmas is about the birth of Jesus. It’s about faith. It’s about family. It’s about having an excuse to get together with our friends, coworkers, and families (crazy aunts and uncles included).
Call me crazy, but Christmas is not about retailers pushing the latest and greatest gadgets, toys, clothes, and whatever else they have come up with each year. They put it “on sale,” slap a Santa, a snowflake, or a snowman on it, and call it Christmas.
That. Is. Not. Christmas.
I worry that many people have lost sight of this, which is why every year for the last 5 years or so when my family has asked me what I want for Christmas I have told them, “Don’t get me anything. I don’t need anything; let’s just get together, eat, and hang out.”
And every year they’ve said, “Bullshit. Give me a list.” So I did.
The second year of this, I proposed we only buy for our parents and the grandkids. Everyone was down for it – except my parents still insisted on buying for everyone and everyone still insisted on buying for me (because I was “young and single,” but that’s another story).
I got one step closer to the true meaning of Christmas. Yet it still keeps getting pushed back earlier and earlier; the decorating and the advertising still keeps starting earlier and earlier, which brings me to my next point.
Losing Time
Black Friday became Black Thursday a.k.a. Thanksgiving. People are pulled away from their families to go back to work, so others can leave theirs to go stand in line or camp outside a store to buy that new X Box or TV or laptop or iWhatever.
Trust me, folks, wait a few days and a few things will happen.
- You’ll spend time with the people who matter in your life that you may or may not get to next year.
- You won’t rob someone else of the same opportunity.
- The X Box, TV, laptop, and iWhatever will still be there.
- It will also likely be just about the same price, if not a better one, as I’ve noticed the past few years.
- You will not get rammed with a cart by some crazed mom, trying to get her kid a new X Box, so he can zone out, ignore his family, and never learn any social skills.
Over the past few years, Black Friday a.k.a. the former start of the Christmas season has taken over Thanksgiving, ensuring very few actually give thanks for the blessings in their lives (which has irked me more and more with every passing year). And now it’s taking over Halloween, too?
Am I the only one bothered by this!
And for what? So retailers can maybe make a little more money or make the same money earlier? Does it really make anyone buy more than they would have? Does buying things really make Christmas more about anything of value? Say love, family, faith?
I think not.
This is a phenomenon I’m calling Rushing Santa.
His deadline was always the same. Ol’ St. Nick and his elves had until Christmas Eve to make all the toys and goodies, wrap ‘em up real nice, and load ‘em on Santa’s sleigh to deliver by Christmas morning.
Now, it’s, “Hey Kris Kringle, you’ve got until Halloween, Thanksgiving at the latest to get your shit together because Christmas Eve and Christmas day don’t mean squat anymore. You better get moving.”
Not only have we lost sight of what matters and means the most, but we’re also missing out on the moment. We are so worried about and spending so much time thinking of and planning for the tomorrows that we are forgetting to live for today.
Now, I’m all for planning ahead. I live by a saying my dad taught me at a young age – Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance. However, this idea does not negate the fact that wonderful things can and do happen everyday, if only we paid attention to what was going on around us in that moment – whatever that moment may be – instead of thinking about all the things we can, will, or should do in the next days, weeks, months, and years.
Make a to-do list and put it out of your mind. Live for today. Enjoy the moment. And, for the love of God (seriously), stop rushing Santa!
Sincerely,
Someone who likes to enjoy one day, one holiday at a time with the people who matter most.
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