OK, so, it’s November right? Time to stress and then decompress about midterms, look forward to seeing the folks for a whole four days, gaining that extra hour of sleep, and pulling out a thicker coat for the colder mornings. You know what else November means? “OMG! It’s November and I still need to buy Susie-May that Justin Bieber doll with hair flipping neck jerk and Toby wants the Hawkenator with six different catch phrases!” The first of November is officially All Saints Day. A day that signified something holy in an alternate universe, but in this universe, it marks the day Starbucks pulls its holiday cups from the storage and corporations ambush you with Christmas commercials. Blessed be.
It’s come as no surprise that as soon as people pull the fake web off the bushes and put away the bleeding
skeleton, they bust out jolly ol’ St. Nick, baby Jesus and the three kings, and they hitch up the car to go find a tree to hack down. Never mind the fact that there’s this holiday called Thanksgiving with turkeys and cornucopias and football. What does stuffing ourselves with stuffing matter anymore? Thanksgiving has become the day to plan out the shopping assault for Black Friday.
But hold up, you don’t have to wait for Black Friday for Black Friday deals! Now there are pre-Friday deals in
major stores that people can take advantage of so that it’s impossible to pass up on the opportunity to start Christmas shopping now. These days, there is no such thing as starting too early on Christmas shopping. In fact, the earlier the better. You might as well start as soon as the New Year starts.
Yet when you take a step back, the hounding of commercials before the jack-o-lantern has time to rot only shows how Christmas has lost its touch in America. Christmas used to be a time to be grateful for the things you own and for having a healthy family around you.
However, now it has become the test of how much your parents love their kids. Some parents love their kids with a iPhone 5 pre-order along with an iPad 2. Other parents love their kids with a new wardrobe from Nordstrom and a Coach purse with matching shoes.
In Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone, Dudley Dursley threw a tantrum because for his birthday, he had one less present than last year. He refused to calm down until his mother caved into his demands for more presents. In all reality, Christmas has become a holiday of Dudleys. People describe a good Christmas as getting all the things on their want list.
The materialistic nature of the “most wonderful time of the year” is appalling. People need to take a time out and appreciate what they have instead of always wanting more. There’s nothing wrong with getting a pair of socks for Christmas if you need them. In all reality, you don’t need an iPad 2; your year-old laptop is still just as good.
Christmas shopping is the busiest and most productive buying time of the season and is only getting more and more successful. Although it’s great for the economy, I challenge people to not ask anything for Christmas and just spend time with the fam. The best gifts to give someone aren’t the ones that come with the swipe of the debit/credit, but the ones you make without spending a dime. It makes for fun times and a much more memorable holiday.
Cole: A gift that gives a little too early
Daily Emerald
November 16, 2011
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