Posted on 11/25/2011 1:27:16 PM PST by NYer
I confess, I despise Black Friday. I hate the way consumers are urged to haul their Thanksgiving-exhausted selves out to stores away from family members who have often traveled some distance to come together so they can surrender their human dignity or assault the dignity of others in order to snag a ten-dollar sweater and a waffle-maker for $9.99.
And I hate the way consumers go along with it.
I hate the way the mad buying and bad behavior is attached to Christmas the coming of the Christ was meant to set us free, and yet the over-commercialization of the Holidays feeds our greed and tethers us to our possessions in a way that can only weigh us down, more firmly, to earthly concerns.
We are not released, only further encumbered.
And am I the only one who, each year, finds the Christmas commercials less ingratiating and more off-putting? The season has only just begun, but already I cant stand the commercial where a son travels through snow to see his parents, only to find an empty house, because his Boomer parents not interested in welcoming him have sneaked out the back and taken his car for a spin? Click! The channel changes every time that commercial comes on.
Shes not writing specifically about Christmas, but in her column this week on Patheos, Elizabeth Duffy examines the emptiness of a life too full of things:
Its time to admit that just as my kids dont play with the wooden toys Id prefer them to play with, I dont wear half my clothes; Ill never read half my books; and I dont bake specialty cakes. And yet, over the years I have accumulated an outrageous number of artifacts for a multi-faceted fantasy life that no one in this house actually lives.
Accumulating all of that stuff it actually creates distance between our real selves and what we think were supposed to be, as dictated to us through advertisers and trends. Buy these $400 shoes and you will be happy; imagine yourself walking down a runway in this dress (that no one can actually wear unless theyre built like an adolescent boy) and it will mean something to you. Really, it will.
But it never does. Because things are just things. They dont add to your wisdom; they dont make you a better or kinder or happier person. If you give them your love, they wont love you back.
As Elizabeth writes:
Because I can afford them, Ill buy five pairs of jeans in search of the one perfect pair. I may only spend twenty bucks, and have five pairs of name-brand jeans, but who needs them? Who can store them? Who has the lifestyle to support five pairs of name-brand jeans? Not me. And to be real, I probably have three times that, because I have my normal jeans, my pregnant jeans, and my fat jeans wardrobe. Also a skinny jeans wardrobe, just in case.
So there, I have clothed myself, and all my potential selves, on a dime. Yay me.
I used to make my peace with Black Friday and the excesses of the season because I considered that even the bad behavior was rooted, ultimately, in love; that people were acting like loons over things because they were motivated by their love for their families. But thats not convincing me, any longer.
Each year, I find myself less willing to take part in any of this, less persuaded that I must go out and buy things for people who already have more than enough of everything, because somehow this is supposed to demonstrate my love. Things mean love.
Well, Im not doing it. The littlest kids are getting gifts (small ones; hello chess sets!) and everyone else is getting homemade cookies or Monastic soaps, cremes and candies high-quality things that are quickly used and gone, and whose purchase helps sustain houses of prayer or books that can actually change peoples lives by helping them to find a measure of true comfort and joy, those two genuine gifts of Christmas. The parish outreach will get the bulk of our Christmas fund.
Advent begins this weekend, and it should be a time of quietening-down, of expectation born of introspection and prayer, and yet those straining to hear the voices of prophecy and heralding angels hear only buy, buy, buy!.
Somewhere between the excesses of the Occupy Wall Street crowd and the excesses of the Black Friday Shoppers, there is balance and reason. But increasingly, our culture can only swing between the two extremes.
The ride is making me sick. I want off.
What, converted into a Class C bus? Oops, just kidding...
I wish! The 15-passenger van isn't big enough for us, if we take the dog anywhere.
Try finding a bed for our behemoth of a dog ...
That's my daughter with her GD, properly named 'Zeus'. Oh wait .. he doesn't need a bed, he has taken over hers ;-)
Oh, my goodness! We have a neighbor with a Great Dane ... it makes two-and-a-half of our Ash, who is a smallish greyhound. Her bed is about 3’x5’, and we have to move it around during the day so she always has the best sunbeams for her old bones.
Great photo. Our Boston Terror would be about the size of the GD’s butt. And no, that’s not a misspelling...
Freedom is good. Greed is bad. Communism is slavery but there are a whole lot of "capitalists" in this country and around the world who would be just peachy with communism if they were ones who got to control who got what.
Stalin and Mao were far richer in material resources and power than Warren Buffet and George Soros could ever hope to be.
Well, maybe not hope to be.
When we arrived, there were two dogs romping through the fenced in field. Lilly, in typical hound fashion, began by sniffing each and every blade of grass, making her way around the periphery of the area. Zeus eyed the other two dogs but was immediately caught up in running after his favorite handle ball. The other dogs approached Zeus to sniff him out and Lilly, catching sight, came rollicking over, tail going at 100 mph, to greet the other humans and then their dogs.
Zeus continued his play and enjoyed the freedom of movement. Not long afterwards, a woman arrived with a Great Pyrenees. "Zook" made his way over to Zeus. They circled each other, sniffing and checking each other out. Meanwhile another car pulled up, then another, and another and before long, it looked like Caesar Milan's pack.
Yes ... that's a pair of greyhounds in the pack!
Lilly was in her glory taking on the role of official greeter. Zeus, on the other hand, stood at a distance, taking it all in. When another new arrival began to challenge some of the other dogs, Zeus made a beeline for me, wedging his head between me and the gazebo erected in the field.
This hulking 150lb dog had no sense of his own size. It was comical to watch him recede while our low rider, Lilly, was out there mixing it up with the visitors. We all had a great time and plan to return tomorrow, weather permitting.
No Boston Terriers but there was a pug and a Labradoodle.
That is an immense dog! And the basset is a real cutie.
Ash is very cautious around other dogs, especially small ones. They might be cats, and she’s afraid of cats, except for ours. On the other hand, they might be a fun prey animal that she can chase. Sometimes she wants to frisk around them to see if they’ll run, and sometimes she stands on the sidewalk and sobs.
Larger dogs are okay as long as they don’t bark or sniff her.
This is our first small breed. We've always had sporting breed dogs before, the last being a German Shorthair (Hans). Frankie is ready to go most any time and keeps us going for sure. But, he's beginning to settle down now and is turning out to be a fine pet.
When did the name “black Friday” come into use? My husband announced he had never heard that until yesterday. I know for the last couple of years I have been hearing it but can't remember when the name started.
“Black Friday” has been in use quite a while. Can’t put a date on it (even a guess) but I’ve heard it for years. My wife’s in retail and it’s been used in our house for a long time.
I have known (and avoided) the Friday after Thanksgiving was a BIG shopping day for a long time but the “name black Friday” is something I have only been aware of for 2 or 3 years.
I was adopted by the basset hound breed 16 years ago with my first rescue, Lucy, also from the shelter. In the 2 too short years she lived with us, 8 year old Lucy taught us all about bassets. When she passed away, I replaced her with a basset puppy and later adopted another basset to keep him company. Around that time, I met up with other basseteers on the internet and a group of us began an annual Basset Hound Rescue picnic here in Albany. Within 10 years, the small group of dogs grew to more than 100! When my boys died within a year of each other, I decided to take a break. That is when my daughter brought home Zeus. While I love the big guy, he is much too strong for me to handle. In late September, my daughter noticed Lilly on the shelter list. I was down there the following morning, Zeus in tow, to meet Lilly and see how the two got along. Lilly, who loves humans, dogs and cats, was immediately smitten with Zeus. She joined the household the next day and keeps us entertained daily. Whenever I take her for a walk or to PetSmart, Lilly insists on visiting every creature that is within range. Were she to enter the Miss America contest, she would win the Miss Congeniality award.
Thanks for posting the picture of Frankie. Please keep us updated on his progress and antics.
What a blessing that you all still live so close to each other or are making it a point to be together.
I’m going to try it next year, but in this case, I’ll be the mother making the dinner for the grown children.
I too will be doing an Advent reflection. Mine is based on Mother Teresa’s prayers. It’s called “With Humble Hearts.” I can think of no better antidote to Black Friday and the secular commercialization of Christmas. God bless you this Christmas!
My priest has a Boston Terrier. She’s very friendly.
We had a Basset Hound many years ago. She was of the Rosebud line if I recall correctly. We obtained her from a family that was moving to an apartment complex that didn’t accept animals.
They’d had a number of rose bushes in their back yard. “Pokey” ate them down to the ground. Then after we’d added her to our family, she opened one of the refrigerator doors (using the towel hung from it) and ate 3 shelves of food including a pumpkin pie. She left a poop trail all the way upstairs.
One morning I got up and found she’d taken a Coke can our son had left on the family room table, and chewed and bent it until there was little left but holes and the bend into a ‘V” shape.
Beyond that, she was a wonderful pet and our son’s favorite (still). If someone is interested in pets, and hasn’t yet had a Basset Hound, they should consider the breed. The best of luck and longevity with yours.
As is ours. Also very feisty.
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