White Friday

Your Head Trucker utterly despises the whole Black Friday thing.

First of all, it's such a horrid name. If you were talking about a stock market crash, an atomic explosion, an invasion or other disaster, okay. But why associate a day of shopping for Christmas presents with such ghastly overtones? I have never participated, and never will, and even though I understand that the crowds are massive . . . um, if they bother you, why exactly are you doing it?

Second, everybody high and low loves to mouth about Big Corporations and how much money and power they have, and ain't it just awful . . . but say, bud, where do you think they get all that money from in the first place? If you weren't handing it over to them so gleefully for shit you don't really need and can't really afford - they'd be a lot less powerful, right?

Finally, the whole commercialization of Christmas has long since gotten totally out of hand. Christmas crap is now stocked on the shelves of stores way back in September. Neighbors here have, in some cases, had their Christmas decorations up for nearly a month already. It's all just too much.  (The folks in one little shack several blocks away just leave theirs up all year long.)

There's nothing wrong, and in fact it's a pretty good idea, to have a holiday at the end of the year, in an otherwise cold, depressing season, when all the family gathers for good cheer; and for Christians, the Feast of the Incarnation is properly a time for reflection on deep things and appropriate devotions. (Advent is, in fact, supposed to be a mini-Lent, a time of fasting and preparation; not that anybody pays the slightest attention to that concept nowadays, in or out of church.)

My family once owned a small business, and I do appreciate the importance of the Christmas surge and its effect on the bottom line. But folks, we could do without all the overdone stuff - that just exhausts everyone and their wallet - and still have a perfectly nice time.

While you're thinking about what I've said, go check out this graphic on what truly good things we could do instead with the $45 billion Americans are spending on Christmas stuff this year.

Then contrast that with this:

Woman Uses Pepper Spray on Rival Wal-Mart Shoppers as Crowds Riot for $2 Waffle Irons: VIDEO