Since a lot of you may still be turkey drunk I thought I better warn you that there are only 27 shopping days left until Christmas. Remember how tired you were hearing about the election? That was nothing compared to the assault retail merchandisers have prepared for us this desperate holiday season. For many of them it really is life and death this year and they have pulled out all the stops. Those of you with nerves of steel who went out there shopping today, Black Friday, I hope you found everything on your shopping lists. For those of you like myself who would rather have a root canal than venture out to a mall today, I do want to remind you that it's not too late to shop on line. I have reliable information that over 15 percent of you wait until Christmas Eve and then race about in a frantic snatch and grab that results in those long lines for returns on December 26. I know it's way too late to slow the annual flood of consumerism and this year it is evidently unpatriotic to even suggest a simpler Christmas. For me and my house this year however we are going to try to scale down a notch. I just can't see how going into personal debt is going to make the economy stronger. Goodness knows if that worked we wouldn't be in this mess. So, what are your plans for Christmas shopping?
I don't know. I get pretty bummed when I see little mom and pop shops closing down in my neighborhood and I wonder why I never shopped there over the other places.
ReplyDeleteIf everybody cuts back, business suffer and people get laid off.
But it certainly is a Catch-22 because I'm not spending all my money if I don't know where the incoming money will be in a year.
PS - You folks have Thanksgiving much too late.
You probably didn't shop there because they charge more. The big companies like my arch enemy Wal Mart can afford to take some losses and they price a few items at a rate that actually makes them lose money. They know you're gonna buy some other stuff while you're there, not even realizing it might be cheaper elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteThe date of Thanksgiving was set by Roosevelt during the lean years as a way of extending the Christmas shopping season. It used to be later. I suppose it being tied to the harvest it makes sense that it is earlier in the north. If it came earlier here it would just mean more opportunities for retailers to make us think we're buying peace on earth by shopping. Bah, Humbug, grumble, grumble.
I did it. I went out into the frey. It wasn't that bad, but I also skipped the 5am wakeup call. And now I'm done. Completely and totally done. I just have to drag ass to the post office now. :)
ReplyDeleteWow WG, you are a go getter. I'm concerned that maybe you didn't have enough turkey.
ReplyDeleteWell, I've already finished Christmas shopping for the kids for Nanna - which means I bought all of Nanna's Christmas presents for her to give to the kids. I used up all my best ideas, but Olivia has told me she doesn't want a lot of presents "because some kids don't get any presents at all." She does want a Wii, though, and we decided to get a Wii as one BIG Christmas present for our little family. Thus, not too many extra toys that we don't even need.
ReplyDeleteOn my side of the family, we buy for the kids, but we adults give to different charities in each other's names. I often buy goats, sheeps, etc. from Heifer International. We've been doing this for about 4 years and it feels really good.
Oh...Did you see The High Cost of Low Prices? I despise Wal-Mart. I'd pay twice as much to get it elsewhere.
ReplyDeleteI love our Wii. Eve bought one with her own money some time back. Neither of us want a thing for Christmas having indulged ourselves shamelessly this year with clothes and shoes. We'll probably donate some to worthy local causes as we usually do and the goats and sheep seem like a marvelous idea too. Certainly I do feel the same about Walmart but my office gave me a 500 gift card to use there. My son told me to donate it to charity but I that just seemed like encouraging others to shop there. I have expressed my strong opinion about them to my company but to no avail. Most of the people in my office think its a great place to shop because it's cheaper. Economics is so hard to explain.
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