Am I the only one who remembers irony?
Got into a bit of a Facebook thing with a woman who was bemoaning the death of Thanksgiving. She said it had been murdered by the crass commercialism of Black Friday, thanks to crass commercialist shoppers crassly trampling over each other to buy crass commercialist electronic plastic crap that was, well, crass.
I pointed out that she had chosen to make her point by powering up her crass commercialist electronic plastic crap to access that crass commercialist Internet so she could log into her crass commercial account on that pinnacle of crass commercialism, Facebook, so perhaps she too was a wee bit… (fill in the blank)?
This did not go over well. I’m now a “douche” who obviously shops at WalMart.
Dear WalMart Brand Recognition Dept:
If a WalMart purchase is the worst insult thinkable by the Millennial demographic, you may want to reconsider your promotional strategies. (And possibly also pay your employees a living wage)
I thought, at first, that our respective points of view were simply because she was pretty young and I was ol…er, less young. The first time you experience just about anything, it’s fresh, it’s never been done before, no one else could POSSIBLY have had this feeling, and you’ve got to FIX IT RIGHT NOW!!!
The fourth or fifth, or fifty-fifth, time, well…you start looking around for other options. And you realize that there might be a few different points of view.
I was struck by the crass commercialism of the wintry holidays in my teens…then I saw It’s a Wonderful Life, Miracle on 34th Street, movies that had been made before I was born. Read A Christmas Carol. Realized that others had been there before me.
And I came to understand that the glories of a holiday were a lot more about how you choose to see the world–and respond–than what was actually happening.
Not that I necessarily practice what I preach, mind you, but…at least sometimes it slows me down a sec.
Food for (crass commercialist) thought.
This falls into the Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays chasm of endless argument. I say do you, whatever floats your boat. I am not a huge holiday decorator so no Thanksgiving, Halloween, Easter display. I do put up a Christmas tree and a few things. But I don’t mind if other people do it.
I had a great thanksgiving. Details different, and yes I shopped from the warmth of my house, but the love and community we wonderful.
My advice is to invest in your friends and community. And be thankful and grateful.
Have no idea why you get this missive, but thanks for making me think about it.
Well, to tell the truth, I moved blog platforms a couple of years ago, and just discovered that a whole bunch of old posts had been unpublished. I’m slowly publishing them back, but forgot to reset this one to its old time–2012.But yes.