Holiday Madness

Just Finished Reading: Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman

I think the cold weather is freezing a lot of brains out there. I've been watching the papers and the news online for the past few weeks. It's a madhouse out there!

It started off right after Thanksgiving. People were getting into fights and trampling others just to get into Walmart stores to buy cheap presents. Yes, it is true that there were repeat incidents a few days later when Microsoft released their new video game system, but that makes it worse, not better. At least one could argue that the after Thanksgiving crowd was trying to save money. The Microsoft mob was just trying to be the first to have an Xbox 360.

Every week I've seen at least one story lamenting the holiday season. We're becoming quite good at complaining about the holidays. I'm thinking there must be some sort of file in the office of every newspaper that contains humbug news. Each year they just pull it out at the right time, whip out an article and publish an easy filler story. Such "news" stories are usually about stolen decorations, damaged Christmas displays, stolen presents, factories closing right before Christmas, troops on foreign soil, psycho world leaders who hate us just in time for the holidays, etc.

Hell there's already enough pressure to try and create the perfect holiday moment, we really don't need any more do we? Every year it gets just a little worse, the pressure. You see the TV commercials, the ads in the newspapers, they always want to "help you find that perfect gift for that special someone." Do they ever help anyone . . . other than themselves I mean? You'll notice that most fo the time these "helpful" gifts are available for a limited time and they also tend to be on the expensive side. Of course, they also usually come with a little financing option thus making the gift that keeps on giving also equal the gift that you keep on paying for :-)

Two more weeks left until Christmas. We've got most of our shopping done, thank God. Unfortunately we have NONE of our mailing done yet which means I've got at least one long wait at the post office ahead of me. We're already receiving Christmas cards in the mail so I know we're behind. Hopefully our cards will make it on time but I'm pretty sure some of them will be late. Sorry about that folks.

There it is again, more of that holiday pressure. It's tough to deal with. You get into a race with everyone else. You keep on trying to out-do everyone else but also yourself. Did you give so-and-so a better present last year? And how does their gift compare to the present you gave to that other person? You don't want to appear as though you like person A more than person B do you? And then there's the really BAD moment that comes when you get the dreaded SURPRISE present. That's the gift that comes from someone YOU didn't get a gift for. Been there. That's when you try to be believable while saying that you haven't finished your Christmas shopping yet and so you haven't gotten that person's gift but you will, and soon (probably right after they leave). Makes you wonder if there are people out there who give surprise gifts on purpose just to be mean :-)

About all you can really do at this time of year is remember the people who mean the most to you. Get them a gift that you put a little thought into and hope for the best. That's what I try to do. Notice I said TRY to do. I don't always succeed. I get caught up in the whole race the same as everyone else.

Two more weeks and then we all will shift gears to trying to come up with shallow resolutions we'll break 3 days after New Year's. And buying discount Christmas decorations. And cheap wrapping paper. And getting on with whatever it was we were doing back in November when the holiday madness struck us :-)

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