Sunday, December 18, 2005

As the Shopper comes home with her presents...

I agree with everyone who says Christmas is too commercial. My sisters and sister-in-law say their kids have enough toys...don't go crazy. It's true; they do. I watch commercials and think there are some ridiculous things out there. And yet...

I think I am brainwashed. I LOVE to Christmas shop. If I was a millionaire the first thing I would do was act like Oprah and go on a crazy spending spree and buy people what they have always dreamed of. (Which is, perhaps, the reason I will never be a millionaire.) I love to think about the most creative thing to buy someone and then I want to out-do it the next year. Joel told me to calm down this year. "We just bought a house," says he, "you can't go crazy like you usually do." And yet...

Am I a victim of the commercial culture? Probably somewhat. I think we all have been marketed to death, but it is so fun to give someone exactly what they wanted.

A few years ago my mom had this nice idea. She asked us to stop buying her presents because she felt that she had more than everything she needed. Instead, she asked us to do one good dead in her honor, write it up, and present it to her Christmas morning. Nicest thing ever, right? Yet for some reason I find this harder to do every year than all of the presents I have to buy. My sisters and I, on a few occasions, have totally bitched* about her behind her back because we forget to do the good deed and then we are left scrambling the week before Christmas. This should be all the proof I need that my Christmas traditions have gotten too commercial. Perhaps I should tell people to give me good deeds instead of presents. And yet...

NKB

*I think that is my first curse word on the blog. Bad.

No comments: