Common Sense Living

Posts Tagged ‘black friday’

I hope you had a great thanksgiving, and that your long weekend is chok full of great plans and good food. I think this weekend is my favorite of the whole year. So much good food and family and friends. Plus, it’s my daughter’s birthday too. And hopefully in between bites, we actually take the time to reflect on the things we are thankful for.

You’re going to laugh. You know how smug I was? All finished cleaning and shopping for the big meal… Imagine finding out on Tuesday night that you have lice! All the cleaning I did now meant nothing. I had to do a thorough top to bottom lice clean, and fast!

Now my house is really, really, really clean.

But I pulled through and even managed to get the pumpkin pie baked. Someone usually brings that, but not this year…

All of the other food was awesome, and I wonder why we only do this once a year. It’s really not hard. We skipped the mashed potatoes, and the rolls were hardly touched. We don’t do mayo laden salads or appetizers, so it’s not terribly horrible for your waistline here. The turkey kind of melted in your mouth. No one could stop. I never have much turkey left. Oh well, we have another dinner on Saturday at my sister’s.

How about your dinner? How did it turn out?

Are you going to do the Black Friday thing?

I personally think it’s crazy to shop on Black Friday – but a lot of people really get into it. Do the stores really need to open at midnight? Isn’t that insane? Can they find any more ways to degrade family time? Now you have people that have to get home early enough to take a nap before htey have to go to work. The almighty dollar rules everyone’s lives it seems.

But what’s really stupid is that they don’t make enough money to cover the expense of being open those extra hours. It makes no sense. More stores are following suit because “everyone is doing it”. What? Everyone is losing money being open those extra hours, so you should too?

Did your mother every ask you – if your friend jumped off the Brookly bridge, would you jump too? Kind of the same thing, isn’t it?

My god, how can we ever get our values back? Can we?

I know a lot of people are feeling really bad because they can’t buy the kind of presents that they would like to. But does all this ‘stuff’ have any meaning? Has it gotten to where we can only express love through buying things?

My friend was asking me the other day what I wanted for Christmas. I said, “Why don’t we just exchange ornaments? You know, find a special ornament.” There was such a sense of relief in her voice – and she got excited. She said, “I know just where to go!”

The point it – it doesn’t always have to cost a lot of money. Usually the things that mean the most actually cost the least. Think about that before you head off to spend a lot of money you don’t have.

When it comes to priorities, and what really matters – Well, I wanted to share this video with you. It’s been circulating the web, so maybe you’ve seen it, but it’s really moving.

Besides another dinner on Saturday, we’re have a tree party on Sunday. Tradition you know. So I’m apologizing ahead of time. You won’t hear much from me.

Enjoy your weekend, doing things that matter!

Black Friday is supposed to be an accounting term. It’s when the company becomes profitable for the year. That is scary in and of itself.

Black Friday means something else entirely to the people who actually have to work in the stores. It means the beginning of long crazy hours, and hoards of rude, overwhelmed and frustrated shoppers.

And this year, one was killed. Trampled to death by people so focused on beating each other to the 5 available TVs, or whatever – that they couldn’t even stop to help a person up.

In years past, the violence was limited to shoving people out of the way, or even grabbing the item right out of somebody’s hands. Many times you would see people actually sitting on their treasure just to keep someone from trying to get it away from them.

But as our world continues to get blacker, it’s really only a matter of time before people will be shooting each other over the coveted item. There was a shooting in a Toys-R-Us store, but it was apparently gang related and had nothing to do with the merchandise.

You wonder how things got like this.

It’s getting harder to care. It seems that no matter what you do, you’re screwed.

You work hard all your life, only to get laid off a few years before retirement with no hope that anyone will hire you at your age, or

You’ve worked hard, and you’ve been successful. You’ve socked away money in your retirement accounts, only to watch it evaporate – poof., or

You’ve always been a hard worker. You’ve been willing to do practically anything to make a living for your family, but now you can’t find a job to save your life.

Not enough experience, too much experience, too young, too old…

People find comfort in food, and escape in the TV.

No one really wants to be fat and sick, but they don’t really care enough to come out of the comfort place.

The thought of death? I don’t think it has such a hold anymore. What the heck – Life isn’t that grand.

As people care less and less about themselves, it’s not likely they’re going to take much thought about anyone else. Everyone is concerned about protecting what they have left, or just trying to survive and find a way to pay the next bill.

But if we’ve sunk so low and gotten so desperate that we are willing to overlook someone suffering just to get a deal – what’s next Christmas going to be like?