true meaning of christmas

November 27th, 2007

     Now I don’t want to be one of those curmudgeonly Grinches who want to steal the heart warming, made-for-TV sentimentality of the Christmas holidays, but……. Well….. SOMEBODY’S got to stand up and say enough is really quite enough.  I mean when you got folks sittin 6-8 hours the same night as Thanksgiving, 25 degrees out and they’re pitching lawn chairs and tents outside Tyee Store so they can get first shot at the Black Friday specials, c’mon, digest your 5pounds of turkey, half ton of dressing, a bucket of mashed potatoes, a quarter bog of cranberry sauce and 3 slabs of pie with ice cream BEFORE moving into the next holiday.
     Thanksgiving.  That was the celebration where the Pilgrims offered the natives platinum cards, no annual fee, 2% frequent flyer miles, generous monthly minimum payments, wasn’t it???  Eat up, Chief, we’re all headed down to Plymouth Rock Mall tonight, be first in line at the Best Buy for their dawn opening, great sales on convection oven Franklin stoves before the Jamestown mob gets wind….. 
     The huddled masses parked outside the Tyee Store entrance, illuminated by the 75 watt yellow bug light, sure seemed festive, like maybe Don and Helen, the owners, were gonna be handing out free E-coli leftover rotisserie turkey dogs along with those Christmas specials.  But you all know, like I did, the real meaning of Christmas is the camaraderie and the sharing of all those cheerful consumers waiting patiently for a real good deal.  Oh, I know, they had a couple of altercations and some jostling at the door, and things did turn ominous when they discovered the specials were mostly in the outdated dairy department.  But in the end nobody got more than their feelings hurt.  Not enough to dampen the true spirit of the season/.
     Christmas on the South End …….  It never really ends.  

Entry Filed under: deer in the headlights (concert commentary)