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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Community Comment

Meaning of the Season? Is that all there is?

Good morning, Netizens...

 

After surviving Black Friday, and still facing Black Monday, I have more questions than answers.

 

How have you fared during Black Friday? Did you succumb to the advertising wiles of the Big Box stores waiting in line in the cold for their doors to open or did you ignore the licentious speed bump advertising for incredibly cheap prices in favor of staying home and reclining in your chair? Or, rather than fight with the people in line waiting for special pricing, did you smile smugly to yourself as you ordered the special prices online?

 

Yes, now we have arrived at Cyber Monday, an online version of Black Friday, and although the members of the news media will not be able to show pictures of harried shoppers standing in line outside your favorite mall outlet, somehow they will attempt to quantify this shopping experience, and thus will not stop them from extolling the virtues of Christmas Shopping online this year.

 

We still come back to the moral and ethical business of the commercialization of Christmas and how you perceive it in your personal lives.

 

In times when I lived as poor as a church mouse, I sought and often found traces of the humanity and human character that, for me, make up what Christmas is all about. Christmas is not about what you buy, or where or how you buy it. It isn't about how many dollars you spend, but rather the condition of your heart at Christmas. For this year, perhaps more than ever, there are vastly more people in need, unable to fend for themselves at Christmas, for whom even purchasing the basic essentials of life, exceeds their abilities to survive.

 

Each year at Christmas I have attempted to portray life as I see it, in both fantasy and fact. This year is not much different, for I will not spend time wasting a lot of time on the commercialization; rather, I will continue to reach beyond that veil and tell tales of Christmas that are meaningful, rich and full of light and laughter and, for me, the joy of the holiday season. Then on Christmas Eve, I will tell the story of the First Christmas, in the hope that it still touches lives wherever this is read.

 

Cyber Monday? No, this is actually quite an ordinary Monday as far as I am concerned, with the exception that most of my family are sick with the flu, and for a time, we are bonded to another as families often should be at times such as these. We each commiserate with one another, our ailments and pains as various as the bugs that caused them, and somehow we will survive, preparing ourselves for this most joyous time of the year, for although Thanksgiving Day is over, we still give thanks for one another and for others who have touched our lives.

 

Dave



Spokesman-Review readers blog about news and issues in Spokane written by Dave Laird.