Joe and I were discussing the blatant commercialism that has become the Holiday season the other night. We were talking about Christmas Day being the only day that stores are actually closed anymore and wondering what chain would be the first to break that sacred tradition. Since Black Friday this year started on Thursday for most retailers we figure its only a matter of time before malls and other stores start their after Christmas sales on Christmas.
I remember many years ago when Mike and I lived in Dallas and Texas had blue laws. Stores that were open on Sunday were only allowed to sell necessities. You couldn’t spend Sunday afternoon at the mall because the mall was closed. People could attend Church or sleep late on Sundays then have the afternoon and evening with their families to relax and reconnect and get ready for the work week.
I wonder which came first….the general populations desire to be able to shop and buy stuff on Sunday or the retailers desire to make more profits. And it’s not just Sunday. My son Chris is working the overnight shift at the Apple call center. He says the sales in the middle of the night are pretty good.
But back to the discussion Joe and I were having. He mentioned that he had read that someone somewhere was suing about the use of the word Christmas tree instead of Holiday tree. Suddenly instead of Merry Christmas store clerks are told to say Happy Holiday because the word Christmas is offensive to some. We can no longer say one nation under God when we say the pledge of allegiance in some schools. At work, the one co-worker who is an atheist complained about our chaplain saying a prayer at the end of the meeting. Hospice is a service that incorporates spiritual needs and employs a chaplain. To not allow a chaplain to pray makes no sense to me. Instead of simply leaving the room so that the rest of us, who welcome the prayer can start our work week with it, he has chosen to make an issue of it.
The reverse can also be true. One year our chaplain objected to playing “dirty Santa” at our Christmas party at work. He said that Santa should not be a part of Christmas at all. That it is due to the whole Santa thing that Christ has taken a backseat . Seemed a little overboard to me. I asked him if we called it Mischievous Angel would he play?. I can be a smart ass at times. LOL
One year at School as President of the PTA I received a phone call prior to our “fall festival” which we were told we could no longer call the Halloween Carnival, from a parent who said she would turn us in to the ACLU if we had jack o lanterns as decorations. I told her I thought Pumpkins were pretty harmless. She said pumpkins were fine as long as there was no faces on them which was a symbol of evil. WHATEVER! This same lady objected to our fundraiser at the skating rink because they had a video game on the premises that she felt was satanic. I told her to tell her kid not to play it. We ended up having to cover it with a sheet during the “fundraiser” to appease her.
Several years ago I was visiting my dad’s Sunday School class and happened to mention that my Church had started a Friday evening service in addition to the traditional Sunday church service. One of the men got very upset with this and remarked that people needed to make getting to Church on Sunday their priority…that nothing was more important than that. My dad without skipping a beat said “well John didn’t you just say you were leaving this afternoon to fly to Chicago for a business meeting. ? “That’s right, he said, but whats that got to do with going to Church on Sunday. “ My dad said “well somebody had to miss Church today to get the plane ready that you are gonna fly out on this afternoon.” If people like you didn’t fly on the Sabbath, people like them wouldn’t have to work on the Sabbath. SCORE!
The point is…well actually I guess I don’t really have a point . As long as there are people in this country that are willing to go out and spend money on Christmas day then I figure it is just a matter of time until Walmart and all the other mass merchandisers, the mall, etc will open on Christmas day just to make more money. The fact that people have to work to accommodate these people and the fact that if there is money to be made the retailers are gonna choose that over their employees being off to be with their families is just a reality. I hope that Christmas Day remains “sacred” and the after Christmas sales really do remain AFTER Christmas sales.
That being said, I want to say thanks to those people who do have to work on Christmas day such as doctors and emergency personnel and hospital workers and soldiers and airline and bus employees and toll booth collectors and such to keep us healthy and safe and to get us to the families we want to spend time with. And I have to throw in IHOP workers because the last 10 years I have had my Christmas lunch at your place. LOL
Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays or whatever you prefer. LeeAnn
No comments:
Post a Comment