I’m bucking the trend and saying yes, I love the buying of Things at Christmastime. For me, Christmas is the “gratification” part of “delayed gratification.” I don’t buy stuff for my kids, myself, or other people through the year. This has as much to do with inertia and The Poverty as it does with ideology. I don’t think people who pick up a stuffed animal for their kid while shopping at T@rget are doing something wrong, by any means. It just never occurs to me, and whenever my kids ask for something at a store, my knee jerk reaction is to say – Maybe you’ll get it for Christmas/your birthday! And if they consistently dig it, then eventually I buy it and squirrel it away til the next nearest gift-giving extravaganza. This is how it was done in my home as a kid, and it’s how I do it, too, just ’cause.
And then the holiday COMES! And we get all the stuff that we waited for! It’s fun, man. The pretty, unenvironmentally friendly gift wrap . . . the death and subsequent emasculation-by-sparkle of an innocent Fraser fir . . . the overconsumption of butter provided by sorrowful, factory-milked cows . . . I love it all. And I’m kind of a drippy hippy, ok? I hold my Cloth Diaper and Homemade Baby Food Martyr torch high over here. But these are the trappings of a winter festival, and so it goes! It gets dark at, like, four o’clock around here. My Christmas tree lights are my Seasonal Affective Disorder Vitamin D light therapy.
All over facebook there’s those pictures of starving children juxtaposed by people carrying boxes at Best Buy, and yeah yeah yeah, ok. Third world problems are WAY more complicated than I care to attempt to get into, and if I believed that foregoing a Christmastime purchase of Legos would end world hunger, I would forego, believe me. I also do not deny that American consume to excess – but man, that ain’t solely a Christmas phenomenon. We purchase to excess all year long. I say “no,” to myself and my kids, day in and day out. I enjoy my gratification this one time per year. January will come, with its dreariness and dieting (and, here at least, Mardi Gras!) But December indulgence is all mine mine mine!
I’m right there with you! It’s crazy how much I love this time of year and really revel in all of it. Now back to my cookie sheet of cookies made with that delicious delicious butter!
I wish I were as eloquent as you. My cloth diapering, hippie, democrat voting self, cut down a live tree, strung lights on it, put it indoors, and dammit, I LOVE it. I bought Candyland for my kid who I’ve only allowed 2 pieces of candy in 2 years. I am beyond excited for whatever gifts are for ME. However selfish that may be, I am constantly depriving myself of things that I want (& some I need) because of circumstance. Christmas bring out the eager child in me. I can’t wait to see my 2 year old play in the wrapping paper pile & be totally overstimulated. And I am excited to have one moment of feeling like I got something just for me. Because, I honestly can’t remember the last time it was just for me.
This isn’t COMPLETELY related, but I’ve been trying to think of a good comeback to the “Keep the Christ in Christmas” signs I have been seeing all over my town. I have nothing against people keeping the Christ in Christmas, but telling *ME* to keep the Christ in Christmas!? Keep Christ to yourself, please!
This post is a comfort to me, because I know that I’m entitled to have Christmas my own way, and, like you, I deprive myself and my kids of material joys and comforts all year long due to both habit and circumstance, and the little pile of presents under the tree is a big joy for me/us. I’m glad to hear someone speaking out in defense of my kind of Christmas.
No one “owns” Christmas, by the way. We’re all entitled to celebrate Christmas however we want, following our families’ traditions or creating new traditions of our own. So, let’s all just keep Christmas christmassy (whatever that means to you). 😉