Black Friday? No No No!

...visions of sugarplums...

1. We have made it past Thanksgiving here in the USA, so I am declaring it officially acceptable to deck the halls and over-play the songs that will be blessedly absent from the airwaves one month from today. 

2. Please don’t think that I hate Christmas music. I actually like it very much, the classier the better! But too much of anything — be it candy canes, chocolate, egg nog, or dogs barking “Jingle Bells” — is bad for you. I speak with the voice of experience.

3. That goes for shopping, too.  Too many people, too much focus on spending money and finding the “right” gift  (which of course seems to cost way too much money)… it makes me stressed just thinking about it!  The crowds and the greed take away from the joy, the lights shining in the darkness, the focus on God and family — and aren’t those the things that we truly treasure about this time of year?

4.  I’m not all Bah Humbug! I’m still enjoying looking for the perfect t-shirts for family members. This one didn’t make the cut, but it did make me laugh:

5. SuperDad and I plan to trek into The City this afternoon for one of those 90 minute presentations that supposedly will earn us free airline tickets and 2 nights free at some hotel/resort.  We have no intention of purchasing a time-share, which I assume is the purpose of the presentation; we just hope to score free transportation and/or a weekend getaway. Now that I am writing this and sharing it with you, it all strikes me as very funny (funny-peculiar, not funny-haha). If I recognize the contradiction here, does that keep me from being a hypocrite? Because while I am not out participating in the madness referred to as “Black Friday” and busily pointing out the greed that runs rampant this time of year, I fully intend on wasting several hours of my afternoon and evening trying to wrangle a too-good-to-be-true deal.