'Tis the Season...

I'm not in a very Christmas-y mood this year. Perhaps that will change here in the next couple of weeks, but for now I'm just urked.

In the past couple of weeks we've all seen the news footage of people camping out in front of stores, sprinting en masse across open parking lots, jostling with police, and fighting each other over VIDEO GAMES. Most of these people look like the $400-$500 price tag of a game system might be better spent on something more useful, like, say...FOOD. But no, we have to get our priorities straight. Here in Tucson, our station ran a story about how a local Circuit City received a shipment of TWELVE Sony Playstation 3's, yet 30 buyers spent the night there in the hope that Circuit City was lying. They weren't, and lucky buyer #13 had the gall to bellyache to our reporters over how devastated he was to not get the game system. I fear there is much more inbreeding going on in our great nation than we're aware of.

This morning Diane had to go into work early for "Black Friday". She was at work at 5:00 am and the doors of her store opened at 6:00. The parking lots to Sears and Best Buy were packed with cars and people waiting for the doors to open. Why? Are we such stupid people that the thirty-one days between Thanksgiving and Christmas simply do not allow us enough time to get our shopping done? "Well, stores have such great specials!" people might explain. Well la-dee-frickin'-da is what I say. Retailers dangle a carrot in front of our noses and we come a-running. I guess that makes us nothing but a bunch of asses.

Do you know who's really going to suffer? The "sane" people like me. I'm probably going to have a hard time finding the gifts I really want to buy my loved ones because all the good stuff is gone. So I'll just smile and take it, move on to the Christmas "B" list, because I refuse to chase the carrot. But I still retain the right to be urked.

And it's sad. This is supposed to be the time of year where we reflect on the blessings in our life, celebrate our loved ones, and exhibit a little selflessness for a change. I'm probably starting off on the wrong foot, but I don't think my being urked is wrong. It may be affecting my attitude right now, but I'll get through it. I'm going to use my irritation as motivation to get Christmas right this year. But not right now...I've got Christmas lights to hang.