When the kids were little, oh my Lord ... I'd spend the entire month of December in stores. We'd scan the newspapers and find the best deals on the latest Fisher Price toy or Cabbage Patch Doll ... and my son always wanted the newest "Transformer" ... those monster robots that turned into big bad fighting machines to save the world from evil. We'd spend hours in the grocery store buying everything needed to make tons of cookies and pies ... and then sing carols all the way to the corner lot and pick out our tree, hoping it wouldn't be as lobsided as last year's tree.
We overspent, overate, watched endless Christmas movies and cartoons ... our lives stopped between Thanksgiving and January 2nd. It was all about the holidays and the kids.
We never had enough money ... but the kids never knew it. There was more than enough to open from Santa. I just spent the next six months paying for Christmas. Then we started all over again.
I miss those days.
Not the struggling for money part, but how much fun we had. Now? I spent a half hour in line at Target and some fancy store in the mall today. The traffic's like wading up the Amazon amidst piranhas and crocodiles and the endless advertising is nauseating.
It's not as much fun as cruising the toy stores at midnight when the sales hit. No ... I just go on-line to avoid people lines. I buy from web sites and it's delivered to my door. There are no children to buy for ... no grandchildren, yet. My adult children are busy and live out of state, I don't even get to see them on the holidays. We're all busy with our lives. If I bake one pie and a dozen cookies ... I'm lucky. Scaling down our gift giving ... toning down the commercialism ... we say to ourselves, "Jesus is the reason for the season."
Don't misunderstand ... I still feel we're the most blessed and spoiled nation on the face of the earth, and we've overblown our budgets and our need for material possessions way too long ... we all need to cut back and remember we don't have to buy gifts to make the holidays special and it should be a sacred time.
But the commercialism was much more fun.
Blessings to you and yours.
No comments:
Post a Comment