The Insanity Called ‘Christmas Shopping’

Mom and I have always abstained from the Christmas rush in the department stores, preferring to do any ordering online. This year is no exception—for several reasons.

Perhaps the biggest deterrent is NOISE. I have a hard time dealing with all the noise inherent in shopping in a department store. There are far too many young children and simply too much chaos in general. Also, given the sheer amount of merchandise crammed in to the stores at this time of year, it is almost impossible to get my walker down the aisles. This was a major deciding factor this year, even more than it has been in the past. My ultimate goal is to make my walker and not my wheelchair my primary mode of transportation and in order to do that, I need practice, both to learn to maneuver and to build endurance. But chaotic stores are not the best place to practice.

We are keeping our Christmas shopping, even online this year light in deference to the economy. However, on occasions when I’ve accompanied my mother to a store to return an item, I’ve sensed an almost frenetic urgency amongst the shoppers.  It is as though if they buy with the enthusiasm they have shown in previous years, they can hold off the specter of recession and economic misfortune. While I am glad for this from an economic viewpoint, since the economy needs to be stimulated and this is not the time when we need to be removing money, I have never enjoyed how commercialized Christmas has become.

Christmas or whatever seasonal Holiday you celebrate, to me is a time for reflecting on your good fortune to be alive and well and basking in the gift that is your family. There was an era, not so long ago, when time was considered the most precious gift you could offer since it was so limited. Often, gifts were homemade and people agonized over what to give for a gift because there were so few they could give. Even when a gift was bought at the store, there was a sense of the blood and sweat that was put in to it. And while this is still true and will always be true as long as people work to have money to pay for these gifts, it seems to me there is something vitally important missing.

People seem far too willing to give and accept bigger and better gifts, which prove only to be a distraction from other people. On Christmas, I would far rather spend quality uninterrupted time with my mother and those friends both locally and long distance, who mean the most to me. However, so many of the people I went to school with seemed perfectly contented to receive their video game system, new bike, computer, or whatever expensive gift was at the top of the list, and then disappear for the rest of the day.

Perhaps this accounts for the frenetic pace of shopping this year. Even in economic slumps, people still want expensive gifts. In fact, many teenagers of my acquaintance take the price tags of their gifts as a mark of their parent’s affection.  And for a parent, I would imagine that the worst feeling in the world would be realizing that your child viewed you as inadequate should the price tag of their gift not be high enough, or heaven forbid, that the parent could not provide the expensive gift their child expected.  

So, as the Holiday season approaches, let us consider the thought behind the gift instead of the price tag to be a mark of affection and treasure this special time spent with family and friends.