Monday 2 December 2013

A Simpler Way to Celebrate the Holidays?

Now that the snow is here, and Christmas music is being piped into sound systems in every store, there is the "traditional" mad rush to buy gifts. The excesses of Black Friday are probably the best symbol of consumerism gone rampant-- fed by the advertising industry and based on the premise that buying more is better. On the one hand, I understand this.  Retailers are still feeling the effects of the recession, and they especially count on Christmas spending to pump up their bottom line. But I find the advertising starts earlier and earlier each year, and the ads get more crass.  (Witness the ad where the salesclerk is piling more and more electronics on a lady who is trying to find gifts for her nieces and nephews and would have to have Bill Gates's income to afford all that stuff!)

Maybe we should take a small step back and enjoy precious time spent with our families rather than seeing how much we can buy for people who probably already have a lot of stuff. Not a new theme certainly, but one that bears consideration in the face of all this pressure to spend...

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