As we head into this holiday season I’m becoming more and more disturbed by how ridiculously consumer driven and selfish this country has become. I can remember when stores not only closed on Thanksgiving and Christmas, but also overnight and on Sundays! Remember those days? When you and your loved ones could count on spending time together at least one day a week …
Slowly, our selfishness has led to stores being open on
Sundays… then 24 hours per day… now 365 days per year. We are a culture of consumers who insist on
instant gratification and have taken a once beautiful and spiritual holiday
season and turned it into an excuse to line the pockets of greedy retailers. And we all feed the frenzy by
running to Wal-mart on Thanksgiving morning because we forgot to buy butter, or
catching a movie when the tryptophan starts to kick in on Thanksgiving afternoon, or (worse yet) allowing black Friday to start a day early by showing up on Thursday evening to get in line so that you can save $20 on a flat screen TV at midnight... They are now projecting that within 5 years Thanksgiving Day will be as big a retail day as black Friday is now. The thought makes me beyond angry.
I see people working at places like Wal-mart, restaurants,
and theatres who are of all ages and walks of life, being paid pathetic wages with
horrible (if any) benefits and yet expected to work ridiculous hours all in the
name of retail and entertainment. We
watch our movies on big screens, sit down at restaurants to be waited on hand
and foot (and then don’t tip, which is shameful, by the way, because servers
depend on tips as part of their minimum wage!!!), and go to department stores
all on traditional holidays like Thanksgiving and spend money we shouldn’t on things we don’t need (when we can’t even pay the
minimum payment on our credit cards), all the while encouraging the corporate
retailers to continue to exploit their workers and fatten their own wallets. It’s disgusting and I’m tired of it. The most important things in this world are
the people, and if you value saving that $20 on that stupid flat screen TV more than the people who will have to sell it to you, well then I
feel sorry for you. I don’t expect this
little rant to change anything beyond myself, but then perhaps that’s because I’m
jaded. I shouldn’t place my faith in
people anyway, but in the God that resides within them. Unfortunately, even those with God on board
don’t always let Him drive…
