Rants - A Holiday Tadition

Hey there, Faithful Readers! Hoping that you and your family had a very blessed Thanksgiving.

If your family is anything like the vast majority of Americans, then life this past Thursday probably looked very similar to mine - Wake up, eat, watch Football, cheer (or cry depending on your team [Packers are 11-0... just saying! :D]), nap, eat more, laugh (or cry depending on your family), then sleep again for the night. 


I figure everyone has a similar experience on this day. Unless, of course, you are the Mom! Then your day begins at 5am prepping a kitchen with wonderful culinary confections of love-filled perfection intricately timed so that the mashed potatos, turkey, stuffing, assorted casseroles, fixings, and enough pies to fill a small bakery all coincide completion at the EXACT moment that the family is thinking about resorting to cannibalism. 


That said; THANK YOU, MOMS! And a very big THANK YOU to my Mom for her years of faithful food preparation. 


I have to beg the question, why do moms subject themselves to this Iron Chef caliber pressure. Often times huge family gatherings and the opinions of in-laws rest on the success of one holiday dinner. Family rarely appreciates the amound of concentration and precise care that goes into each dish; so why do mom's do this? 


The answer is - It's tradition. 


I love the Holidays. They are so rich with tradition. The Macy's parade ending with the advent of Santa Clause. The overindulgence on Turkey and stuffing throwing the mass populous into a tryptophan coma until New Year's. The clamor and frantic searching for the Christmas list items in understocked stores. In the Church, the weeks of advent and special services centered on the person of Jesus Christ. The TV specials. Apple Cider. Candy Canes. Egg Nog. Snow Flakes.


All of it is spectacular. 

But here's where the holiday rant takes a turn from the good feelings and drops into the bathos of the glooming reality. (This wouldn't be a rant without sharing some sincere thoughts.)


There are some traditions that happen around holidays that are regretable and, I wish, avoidable. 

One such tradition is this BLACK FRIDAY deal. Don't get me wrong. I understand the economical importance of the holiday and definitely don't want to deprive business with the opportunity to thrive. We need that nowadays. What sickens me though is what it's become to the shoppers. They have become SO consumed with the idea that getting this special deal is LIFE OR DEATH! My recent tradition has been to scour the news headlines and see the most horrific incident involving holiday shoppers. 


This year it's a toss-up between the various Walmart tramplings and the woman who pulled out pepper spray AND USED IT to get the drop on other shoppers. 

Ridiculous. What have we become? It used to be a touching sentiment. Mom and Dad love the family so much that they're willing to wake up uber early (fighting the effects of tryptophan induced comas) and stand in even longer lines just for the opportunity to get their family that ONE thing that might bring astounding joy and enrich their life. Certainly, I love my family enough that I would be more than willing to waste hours, days, even weeks to make them happy. 


But that's no longer the sentiment.

We used to create wish lists where we didn't expect the world and if we got even one thing that we asked for, we were grateful, appreciative and excited. Now when we create lists, we expect EACH AND EVERY thing there to be wrapped up under the tree. And when there's something missing, we're in a slump until Easter. And, of course, why wouldn't everything be under the tree? Our family loves us. We've created comsumer whores... We've become easily disappointed. We've missed the point of Thanksgiving. 


Personally, I think we need to move Thanksgiving to AFTER Christmas. (This would also let the department stores avoid the faux pas of setting decorations out TOO early... like before Halloween...) But it seems counterproductive to the holiday when we spend a day expressing how thankful we are for what God has blessed us with, an opportunity to be content, and turn around before the gravy has congealed and focus on our greed. We NEED that 45" flat screen TV and who cares who I need to step on to get it... We need Thanksgiving after Christmas so we can say "I know I didn't get what I wanted, but I am happy anyway. Life isn't about stuff."


Of course, the people who actually need to read this thought will probably never see it. But that's ok. Change begins at home. I've only put one thing on my wish list for this Christmas. It won't make or break my joy if I don't get it. It might even hurt the economy if no one's buying things for me. But I seriously think we have bigger problems than the economy right now. In fact, I still hold to the theory that the economy is a reflection of these greater problems; the symptom, not the root cause. I'm going to just be thankful for what I have, try to bring joy to others. Christmas is about Giving. If I don't get, that's ok. If I don't give... well, then there might be something wrong with me. 


If you could narrow your wish list down to just ONE item what would it be? Would you be destroyed if you didn't get it?