Since we’re so close to Christmas and businesses have literally gone nuts with sales promotions, I thought I’d tackle this as a subject of today’s blog.  For quite a few years, the kick-off for Christmas shopping has been the day after Thanksgiving.

I think this traditional start for shopping goes back to the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day parade, an event that was actually started by Macy’s employees in 1926.  It’s said that so many of the employees were immigrants and they wanted to do something like the festivals they had back home, so they thought a parade on Thanksgiving was a good way to give thanks to their new country.  In a short time, it became the symbol of the start of the holiday season and soon people began using it as the signal to begin decorating and buying gifts.

As a child, I remembered it being a wonderful time of year.  The decorations downtown went up and the Christmas tree at San Jacinto Plaza in El Paso went in right after Thanksgiving.  The city was filled with lights and ornaments.  The manger scene was set up in the Plaza.  In the downtown department stores, many of them had wondrous displays of Christmas and winter scenes.  They had Santa’s toy shop in a window, the manger in another and Christmas morning in yet another window and just display after display depicting the joy of Christmas.  It was a delight to children just to walk along the street peering in one window after another.

I would take my $5 or $10 dollars on the bus downtown to go shop for my presents for the family.  Obviously, that money was worth a lot more in 1960 than it is now and I was able to buy something for everyone with just that little amount of money.  Of course, the trip took a long time as I went down all the main streets and into the Plaza so I could soak in the beauty of the holidays.  It was all very magical and people seemed to be filled with the joy of the season.

Over the past decade or so, the start of the holiday season seems to be creeping steadily forward.  Thanksgiving hasn’t even started when decorations begin going up and displays in the stores come out.  Gone are the beautiful Christmas windows with the valuable space being occupied by sales items with a winter theme, but not much of the holiday spirit. This year, some of it was out before Halloween, although the Halloween lights easily transitioned to holiday lights.  In the past few years, shopping on Thanksgiving has come into vogue.  I was pleased to see some companies refusing to open on Thanksgiving so that their families could enjoy the holiday.  Other companies waited until later to open.

But why is it necessary to open at all?  Does it really translate to more sales or just earlier sales for business they would have gotten on Friday, Saturday or Sunday or even the following week?  Then they have Black Friday, Cyber Monday, and now Green Monday.  Some business had Black Friday sales all of November and are still going on.  Black Friday extends to Cyber Monday, which in turn lasts all week.  Suddenly, we, as potential customers, are being bombarded with sales that are aren’t really all that special.

Even my email has been loaded with sales, day after day, for the past month and a half.  Any business that can possibly cut their prices by fifty cents has called it a Black Friday sale or a Cyber Monday sale, even though it has nothing to do with electronics or computers.  It’s just too much.   Don’t stress because you missed a sale or didn’t have the money when the sale was on.  There will always be more of them coming up after Christmas.

It’s time to get back to the real meaning and joy of the holidays.  It is not buying lots of gifts, getting false discounts or shopping until you’re short-tempered and not having a good time.  It’s about the promise of the season.  No matter what religion you are or aren’t, the holidays are about the beauty of the winter season, the rest period for your body and your spirit and the preparation for the coming promise of spring.  It’s about reaching for your faith and gaining insight into yourself and your place in the Universe.  It’s about being with your family and friends, sharing moments that don’t come often and being thankful for everything you have, even if it seems like you don’t have much.  It’s not about material things.  It’s about love, family, reflection and peace of mind and spirit.

So, take some time this December to reflect on what is truly important and wonderful about the season.  Let me know your thoughts about the holidays .