Post-Feeding Frenzy

"Suddenly, it's Christmas, right after Halloween. Forget about Thanksgiving it's just a buffet in between." - Loudon Wainwright III
These are the words that ring in my head about this time of year as I prepare for the slide into winter that is marked here in California primarily by the plastic wreaths hanging from the telephone wires strung across the streets. The other leading indicator is the number of amount of mail both analog and electronic that fills my box reminding me of all the savings I could be experiencing if I wasn't so busy recycling the fliers and deleting the e-mail reminding me of all the savings I could be experiencing. Christmas may be on its way, but Black Friday is practically here already.
These days, it isn't enough to rush out the day after gorging ourselves on turkey and football. The rush to get our loved ones all the gifts they so richly deserve a full month before the day on which they are to open them up under their obligatory tree is palpable. So much so that retailers have taken the additional step this year of pushing that boundary back to Thanksgiving Day. Now, instead of simply eating your fill of cranberries and the oh-so-apporpriately-named stuffing and sitting on the couch with a glazed look on your face not unlike the yams that you consumed just prior to staring at the Dallas Cowboys playing whoever else lost the coin flip this year, you can rush out to the mall and get your shopping frenzy on at a number of retailers who are excited and anxious to have your dollars before you've fully digested.
It would be somewhat disingenuous for me to scoff at this notion completely. Since I moved away from my family in Colorado, I have participated in this sweepstakes primarily online. In order to beat shipping deadlines, I have made purchases well in advance of December just so I didn't have to stand in line at the UPS Store and fret that my packages would make it to that spot under the tree before the joyous day. Maybe I participated in the panic. Maybe I contributed to the need for a petition from Target employees, anxious to have their bosses consider relenting on their promise to open their doors next Thursday, eliminating the one day of calm in what is traditionally a buzz saw of commerce with those red-vested folks with name tags squarely in the path of all that fury.
I worked at Target. I unloaded trucks, I never had to stand amidst the chaos on the sales floor during the height of Christmas Season. The week before Thanksgiving, we got bigger trucks, stuffed with more merchandise that needed to be tagged and sorted so that wild-eyed customers could have their Cabbage Patch dolls and mini-refrigerators. The rest of the crew and I were afraid to go out on the floor where all that carnage was taking place. That experience was what made me such a fan of shopping on Al Gore's Internet. Over the next few days, I'll probably be sitting down in front of my computer and I'll be making a list. I'll check it twice. And I'll be glad that I can stay at home on Thanksgiving and the day after, doing the thing that is most important: hanging the highest number of lights before infinity on my house.