Well, Friday is winding down and apparently no Five Minute Friday link-up today. It seems that Five Minute Friday is off for the holiday. But just in case the Accountability Police are checking to make sure I'm keeping my resolution, I feel like I should write a little something for Friday. So let's make up our word prompt, shall we? I know - how about ridiculous?
Every year, the calendar seems to speed up. I don't mean that time seems to be passing more quickly and how have we already reached December? I mean the media and retailers' efforts to rush every.single.holiday. I found candy corn in the store in July, for goodness' sake. Candy for trick-or-treaters followed not long after. And then, whoosh! November 1 - no more candy corn to be found; Christmas candy crowded the shelves.
And Thanksgiving? I've always thought Thanksgiving gets a raw deal. People think roasting a turkey is terribly difficult. It's not. There are very few Thanksgiving hymns in the hymnals. Oh, wait. Does anyone still use a hymnal?
This year, I began to wonder when our country was going to stop acknowledging Thanksgiving completely. "Black Friday" sales started a week (or longer) before Thanksgiving. One retailer opened at 6 a.m. and other stores opened mid-afternoon and in the evening on Thanksgiving Day. No more waiting until midnight. No, sir. Someone even said that Thanksgiving was being referred to as Brown Thursday. Followed by Black Friday. I had the television on as I cleaned my kitchen floor this morning and actually heard a commercial that "Black Friday specials aren't over yet." It wasn't even 8 a.m.! Shouldn't Black Friday specials last until the end of business on Friday? Or at least until noon?
And the morning news report contained the mandatory report on the mobs at various stores in the region. My question is this: Is it worth it? Is it worth the $20 you save to stand in the freezing cold and risk being pushed and shoved (at the very least; trampled to death at the worst) when you likely could get the same deal or close online or tomorrow or some other time before Christmas?
Next up is Small Business Saturday (this one I can actually get behind) and then Cyber Monday. (Cybershopping is the way to go, in my opinion.) I haven't heard a retail-related moniker for Sunday yet. Maybe crazy shoppers still need a day of rest.
What's heartbreaking most of all is the fact that all of this retail insanity is all about getting more stuff that we don't need. Instead of taking one day of respite from the crazy, our culture ramps up the ridiculous.
As for me, I'm going to try hard to focus more every day -- not just on Thanksgiving - on what I've been given, the blessings I have, how well I am provided for, and how to share those blessings with others.
And no, I won't be buying Valentine's candy when it hits the shelves December 26.
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