Escape from Commercialism

I'm not a Christmas practitioner, although I do appreciate the seasonal celebration of gift-giving and twinkly lights and Solstice and Yule and goodwill and global hopes of world peace. Close enough, eh?

One of the aspects of this season I've always appreciated was the cessation of commerce. Commercials continued on the air and on TV, but stores closed and nothing but emergency services were available. Heck, there was a time when I was wee that even TV and radio stations went off the air. It was a TOTAL closure - quite literally nothing or very nearly nothing was open. Peace and quiet reigned supreme!

More and more, I'm seeing "We will be open on Christmas Day from xx:xx AM to xx:xx PM!" I can guess what advantage that is for the business, but I would rather go without. One whole day where sanity reigns rather than commercialism. I remember the quiet on Christmas Day. Very few cars would be about, except ones on the way to parties or to go visiting. Shopping parking lots would be empty, store lights turned off, drive-throughs closed, and even the movie theaters would shut down.

I remember one year that was particularly rough on our family. It was the Christmas after my dad died and we were trying to make the best of it. We three girls had made sure the house was decorated and the tree was beautiful, and everyone had plenty of things to open. We were putting together the final touches on Christmas Eve and began hanging the stockings when we realized we hadn't taken into account stocking stuffers!! That was always a big part of our family tradition, but under the circumstances it wasn't surprising that we'd missed it. The three of us hopped into the car and went out hunting for ANYthing that might be open.

We searched downtown, the nearby strip malls and on the main streets near the freeway. It was a toss-up between a dive of a liquor store and 7-11. Inside the 7-11, it was dead quiet. The clerk was the only one there and had apparently been undisturbed for hours. If we NEEDED a store to be open (as suggested by the helpful tone of the store notices today) you would expect a crowd in the only open store on our side of town. But, no. Apparently, everyone in our town of about 40,000 was quite able to cope for a day and half without going shopping. I think we amused that clerk as we desperately attempted to assemble items vaguely resembling fun that would do for stocking stuffers. I remember our delight when we found the toy isle and could grab such items as playing cards and jacks.

Here's the key point, however: if NOTHING had been open, we were resourceful enough to have made do. Knowing that everything would be closed for a while after close-of-business on the 23rd or 24th encourages foresight and planning ahead. Woe to the procrastinator! Which is, I think, as it should be. Would that we could return to those quiet, quiet winter days of the holiday season.