On November 16th I joined the Face book Group ”Buy Nothing Day”, with the full intention of boycotting the biggest shopping day of the year.  I wouldn’t be part of that day of homage to American Shoppers, Black Friday.  I didn’t want nothing to do with it.  I was more then happy to spend the day amongst my family eating turkey leftovers and playing Apples to Apples.  The problem is I was too busy shopping to remember I wasn’t supposed to be spending money.  I mean who has time to follow their morals and ethics when the Gap has Christmas sweaters buy one get one free and Nordstrom Rack could sway even the stingiest of shoppers and after that it was on to a manicure, carryout lunch and a Nicole Kidman epic at the theater. 
Seriously I didn’t have one spare minute to think about not consuming because I was pretty much consuming from sun-up to sundown.

I don’t spend much but I still spend too much.  Everyone I know spends too much, bar none.  Whether it’s on their home, their car, their kids, their looks, their hobbies, their lifestyle, their families or their food- too much.  While I was shopping for twelve hours straight I was not alone; at one point my sister in law and I looked at each other as we pushed our way through Bath and Body works and said, “Recession, ha”.
Unless gingerbread smelling body lotion has become a household necessity then I don’t think most Americans even begin to understand recession.

I guess the reason I’m writing this is because Christmas is rearing it’s ugly head once again and when I say ugly…I mean just that, ugly.  I took an informal poll these past couple weeks of Christmas presents past for the under twenty set.  Most kids couldn’t remember a single present much less their favorite one, but now you’ve got a house full of cheap crap they can’t even remember getting. 
The ones who did remember mentioned toys that were in the two hundred fifty to five hundred dollar price ranges, so unless you got a cool grand to blow on your two kids then your thirty-five cheap crap presents are not to be remembered.

Try this instead.  Try giving them a gift they will remember- it’s called your time.  It’s free, it’s worth the most and it’s a present to yourself as well as the person you give it to.  When I asked my two nieces how do you know your parent loves you, both of them said without hesitation that it was the time they spent with them doing homework or when they were sick or even just talking to them on the phone.  I didn’t hear a peep about an iPod, a car, a game system, or an expensive handbag.  I read a study once that said women will spend about eight years of their lives shopping; more if you include window-shopping.  They say time is money and I can think of a lot better ways to spend both.

Listen to this, it’s Raymond Carver:

“And did you get what you wanted from this life, even so?
I did.
And what did you want?
To call myself beloved, to feel myself
Beloved on the earth.“

That’s the kind of present you can’t even begin to fit in a box or cover with a bow but Merry X-mas it’s what I wish for you this holiday season.  I hope you get it.