The Commoiciolism of the Holidays

Yeah commoicialims is the worst. Make a buck. Make a buck. Don't care what they stand for. Just make a buck. Make a buck. So says Alfred in Miracle on 34th Street with his New York Accent.  And  we know what he means watching the Macy Day parade where every float represents a brand or a product and we are hit with every Broadway show and every commercial. Make a buck. Make a buck. And you try and find some meaning in the Juggernaut of American Consumerism where everyone seems happy as pie spending a fortune on Black Friday.

And yet you feel uncomfortable with all of it. It couldn't have always been this way. Surely we are haunted with the thought there were simpler holidays where the true meaning of being together and enjoying family was preeminent. And so we look in the Christmas movies for some meaning or we see people we haven't seen all year and think well this is all good.

And we partake but we feel Alfred's frustrations as he vents about how Christmas seems buried under a corporate bent on selling as much as they can during out festive holiday. And maybe that is the way it always was but you like to think that the Macy Parade was really just a parade once of floats and bands and that the Friday after Thanksgiving was just a day. Of course Alfred was venting in 1942 about commoiciolisms.

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The Real Cost of Black Friday

Granted Black Friday is consumerism gone bad. Getting up at the crack of dawn or going to the store at midnight is slightly mad, but what is the real cost to save a buck? If you went down to the store at midnight then the cost is obvious. You leave your family on one of the few days you have off to go to a store and fight with thousands of others for a deal you may or may not get. The cost is psychic yes but it is also economic.

You will spend money to compensate for leaving: gas and food for one. Loss of sleep for another, somewhere you will have to catch up. Maybe you take the kids to a movie or dinner to compensate. You are not home and there is a hit there too. Dad or mom is gone again. A day home from work to be with family has turned into another parental absence you cannot make up. The number of days we as Americans have to spend at home is diminishing as the recession drags on and on. People are already working Saturday as standard operationg procedure to keep their jobs.

But lets say you don't take a hit anywhere else. You have succumbed to the oldest bait and switch on the planet. You are in the store to get hat IPOD for fifty dollars less and maybe you get it but then you get hit with all the other deals. Impulse buying kicks in and now you are getting the switch. Statistics prove people buy unwanted items just by entering the store and that is what Black Friday is all about. Even if you get suckered just a few times the savings that got you up in the middle of the night is gone.

So save yourself some time and money and let Black Friday pass. The deals you miss will be more than paid for by hanging with your kids and your wife or husband. And we all know that time is not money. Time is much more precious.

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