Black Friday is coming. I know lots of people are planning for massive shopping expeditions to spend money that they don't really have for people who probably don't need the gifts. But never mind that, the credit card bill won't come in for a few weeks. Time enough to panic then, right? If that part weren't bad enough, black Friday now starts before some folks have even finished their Thanksgiving meal. I expect the whole of Thanksgiving to be subsumed by shopping any time now. We'll go straight from Halloween into Christmas shopping. Oh, wait, we do that now. Crap.
I have seen so many people get upset over not getting the "thing" that they had to have for Christmas. Yes, I was probably there myself, but that ended many, many years ago for me. I still see many people, a lot of them in my own family no less, that crave anything and everything under the tree. Most of the stuff will be lost, broken, or out of fashion before the snow finishes coming down this winter. What is the point?
Think about someone else this holiday season. Think about someone that doesn't have a tree, much less presents to go under it. How about no food? That's always a fun thing to deal with. But guess what? Most of us have the means to give ourselves a bit less and give others something. In our house, the best part of the holiday is going out to shop for the local food pantry. We follow that up with shopping for Toy-for-tots. We end our shopping by paying off layaways for complete strangers. And we feel awesome after we do all of that. I don't need anything. I want for nothing. My fun is more expensive than most people are willing to spend (I love to travel). We have enough to give, especially this time of year. We give year round, but that is for another post.
So think about it. Think about what you buy, how much you buy, and how little other folks have. One of my favorite quotes by Gandhi sums it up: Live simply so that others may simply live. I am not suggesting anyone take a vow of poverty. We haven't. But we do think about what we actually need around this time of year and what we can live without. Then we try to help other people in our community have what they need to live. That is what the season is supposed to be about.