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Christmas Eve is almost upon us. That’s the only time my wife is sure of where I am – I’m out shopping.
Christmas Eve is a most under-valued time for shopping. Why fight the crowds on Black Friday looking for discounts? You ought to see the discounts a store manager will give you at the last minute when he still has a bunch of dingbats he can’t sell. Also, there are fewer people still shopping, and since most of the merchandise is gone, you don’t have to worry as long over making choices. You can buy something quicker – and whoever is selling it is glad to see it go. Whatever you buy – Wow! – are they glad to see it go! Christmas Eve is the only time to buy Christmas presents.
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Oh yes, since you’ve saved so much time, there’s still time to get to the Christmas Eve services. Might even be time for a little eggnog beforehand.
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So here we are in 2008. Finally, the steep economic decline has made us stop and think what we REALLY need for a Merry Christmas. More than 20 years ago, the local author Tom Mullen warned against our national obsession for loading up the kids with presents. “Probably no holiday,” he writes in his book, Parables for Parents and Other Original Sinners, “generates so much anticipation as Christmas….By the middle of December countless children have become convinced that their entire lives will be empty and meaningless if they do not possess by Christmas day a toy model of a supersonic thing that goes ‘glug-a-boom’ and lights up on electronic command.” Glug-a-boom was then, iPod and iPhone are now – same idea.
Mullen claims the day after Christmas is the favorite holiday for “veteran parents.” By then, he says, “all the batteries are mercifully dead. The supersonic thing can no longer go glug-a-boom, and the children are playing happily with the box it came in…..The partridge is safely enscounced in the pear tree, and the little drummer boy has rub-a-dub-dubbed his last thumps for the season.”
(As my penance for not asking Tom to quote his stuff, if you’re still looking for a last-minute gift that doesn’t look like a last-minute gift, his Parables book and others are a good choice.)
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Still, whether by choice or economic necessity, maybe it’s best not to over-anticipate either the day of Christmas or the day after. Let them appear without the burden of obligation or false expectations. Enjoy them as they come. Remember, Christmas began in a very quiet and simple way.

–Vic Jose

Vic Jose :: Dec.21.2008 :: Uncategorized ::

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