The Road to Christmas is Full of Potholes
This holiday season started without me.
Thanksgiving was as late in the month as possible this year, so I wasn’t paying attention as the holiday shopping season sneaked up and stomped all over it. Don’t we usually at least talk turkey for a week leading up to the blessed day of engorgement? Not this year.
In the days leading up to Thanksgiving, all I heard on TV (between the Black Friday ads) was how crowded the airports and highways would be, and how various storms would hinder travel. Rain messed up the Macy’s parade. I forgot that there’s a deluge of football games on Thanksgiving weekend. Not only did the annual Turkey Day NFL games take place (now up to three), it was also Rivalries Week when college football teams play their last games against their most hated opponents. Good wholesome fun.
While all this was happening, you could sense an encroaching thunderstorm of nonstop ads and storefront camping. And sure enough, it was (almost) a perfect storm of shopping. Everyone was out and about and spending historic amounts of money. Maybe the economy isn’t so bad after all.
It seemed like Black Friday started in September. Maybe that was another Amazon Prime Days or something. Anyhow, we now have Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, National Secondhand Sunday and Cyber Monday. We also have Super Saturday (the last Saturday before Christmas). Hey, there’s even a Green Monday (second Monday in December) for online shopping.
The Day After
And those are just the shopping days I’ve heard of this time of year. Then there’s Boxing Day, the English Commonwealth holiday on December 26. It is apparently not a day to box up your new treasures. It’s not really a shopping day. It’s more of a recovery day although the after-Christmas clearance sales begin in earnest. In America we celebrate that day as National Returns Day.
With all the sales events, this holiday season should be called “No Shopper Left Behind.” Everyone’s gifts are sure to help fill their closets, attics and self-storage units. Next year’s garage sales are looking promising.
I sometimes take a break from all this and think back to the Novembers and Decembers of my youth. Just getting to Christmas vacation (two weeks!) was our immediate goal and it included a lot of prayers for snow along the way. Those were the years I learned about calendars and how unfair it was that summer months passed quickly while winter months were endless. What was God thinking?
Catherine and I are now at the point in our lives that we don’t need any more stuff. As much as I like new gadgets, learning how to use them requires time and patience, and I’m running out of both. Just when you figure them out, new feature-rich models become available. So, you start over.
Cables ‘R’ Us
Since nearly every digital device has now migrated from USB-A connections to USB-C, a great gift idea this year might be to buy everyone new devices. OK, maybe not. But a cheaper alternative is to buy adapter cables and chargers to work with their new phones, tablets and laptops.
It’s cheaper than buying them new devices. And to any device manufacturer reading this: could we just stay with USB-C now? It’s reversible, works well and I don’t have room for any more old, unusable cables.
Catherine and I might buy each other new recliners for Christmas so we can upgrade to the new USB-C charging ports. We already use adapters, but I have a drawer full of adapters that are now useless. Aren’t you supposed to replace everything, including your furniture, when standards change? It’s the American thing to do.
Is it just me or has anyone else noticed that catalogs are back in fashion? Catherine has received so many this fall that our recycling bucket fills fast. I know because I’m the mail retriever and recycler.
Another thing I’ve notice this year are the many front yards full of inflatable holiday characters. Was there a special on them or something? I think they’re cool except that they look like disaster scenes from a war movie when deflated. Somehow, they manage to find their way back to life each day just when the kids get home from school. Amazing.
The holidays will be a distant memory soon enough, so steer your way around the shopping potholes to make this season one worth remembering.
You can worry about paying for it later.