A Christmas without gifts?
Would it really be so bad?
Has anyone ever died
because they missed a TV ad?
Every goddamn year,
people fight over ‘smart TVs’
and camp out at a store
like trained chimpanzees.
Into the store you go.
You do exactly as you’re told.
On Monday, hit the keyboard,
and yet, another diamond sold.
What holiday is this?
Did you miss the memo too?
What happened to peace and love?
You’ve turned this earth into a zoo!
Fights broke out here!
There’s shooting over there!
You stomp each other every year
trying to buy some Tupperware!
So, you’ve got your shopping done.
For those gifts, yes you did brawl.
You found everything you need,
but was Jesus at the mall?
Now, sing your songs about his birth.
Oh, what joy it brings!
You hocked your ass to death
for all those stupid things!
Written by,
Shelby I. Courtland
©2017 Shelby I. Courtland
Today, I was asked if I had my Christmas shopping done. The question was posed by a stranger, someone who obviously did not know me. And I answered, “No one is getting a damn thing from me! They never do!” And I was quite surprised when the lady stated that she was of the same mindset and that she had ditched that shopping madness shit years ago. I told her, “Good for her!” There were others around and we had a lively conversation about this. Here in my neck of the woods, there weren’t many long lines snaking around stores waiting for them to open. Many people are as fed up with this spoon fed shop ’til you drop shit as I am and here I thought I was out in left field all by my lonesome in my views of what the ‘celebration’ is supposed to be about.
Long before Christmas even rolls around, even before Thanksgiving, we are bombarded with advertisements to spend, spend, spend money that we don’t even have but because deep discounts are touted, we are made to feel that if we don’t hock something at least, to buy that too good to miss TV deal that we are just slackers. There is never even time to sit down at a table to try and be thankful that we are alive on Thanksgiving Day because before that day and even during that day, we are told to go out and shop. We are told to buy a turkey with all the trimmings and then get right up, head out the door and make sure that we keep shareholders of corporations in the black while our financial situation is in the red.
There are many people who are living paycheck to paycheck and who can barely keep a roof over their head and with their paychecks not keeping up with inflation; the high cost of living, they are still expected to pull money out of their ass to buy gifts. What in the world could you possibly need since you go through this mess every single year? How many TVs and Keurig coffee makers, microwave ovens, vacuum cleaners, SUVs and the list is endless do you really need?
The next time you are out driving around, visit a landfill just to get some idea of what we use and then throw away. What will it take to get you to realize that those boxes, Styrofoam, plastic and associated items to keep that coffee maker secure inside that box are filling up landfills everywhere, not to mention, the toxins that come from those products are seeping into our groundwater and we are drinking them every single day. You don’t ever wonder at the price we pay for our headlong rush to get some great deals, but it will all soon come back to bite us on the ass. If you really cared for your children and your grandchildren, you would sit them down and explain to them why you are not getting them something that they’ll play with for a few minutes and then toss to the side. You would explain to them that their very lives depend on you not shopping for yet another doll, another video game, another toy and another and another.
At least I can be thankful that some people are finally waking up and realizing that they have been nothing more than mindless shopping drones who have been programmed to spend too much money to enable shareholders to happily deposit their dividend checks and to enable CEOs of corporations to buy yet another island paradise with that bonus check thanks to overzealous shopping habits because of commercials insisting that you spend yourself to death.
A Christmas without gifts? Would it really be so bad?
shelbycourtland 
It’s great to hear that people are getting fed up with the advertising industry leading them around by the nose – and waking up to the fact that consumerism is a plague on the planet.
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I don’t even care if it is simply because people are just too broke to shop ’til they drop. I’ll take any reason for why spending in my area, at least, is down. I was talking to a lady the other day who shops at Wal-Mart and she says that all other times during the year, she’s got to wait in line at one of two open registers at Wal-Mart, but now when she goes into Wal-Mart, every single cashier lane is open. Go figure! Of course, that’ll change again right after December 31st because as we all know, even after Christmas, year end sales are advertised everywhere from linen to cars and everything in between. Gotta get that 4th quarter earnings report looking good.
Thank you for your comment, Dr. Bramhall.
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You are absolutely right on this Shelby. At Thanksgiving we draw a name for secret Santa. We’ve been doing this for years and it makes life so much easier. The hype and hysteria is totally impossible in these most difficult times.
Leslie
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It is indeed, impossible Leslie. And yet, corporations are not concerned that people, everywhere are broke. They just keep right on ramping up the hype of overspending oneself into much deeper debt and for what? To impress our ‘loved’ ones? If they love us, then we don’t need to impress them with expensive gadgets and doo-dads.
Leslie, I thank you for that wonderful response. That is a much easier way to go about it.
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It has become insane Shelby and there is so much misery out there. The kind of misery that doc-dads will never satisfy.
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Our ‘Secret Santa” brings only one gift to the value of about twenty Australian Dollars for each grown-up person. The little children usually get more than one little gift to unwrap! 🙂
Aunty Uta
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Auntyuta, I thank you for your comment. I do realize that people are going to celebrate Christmas with gift giving, however, I’ve never seen videos of people in other countries who are celebrating Christmas, stomping on each other, fighting, shooting it out and camping out for days on end to buy exactly what they bought the previous year and the year before that. But here in America, we are shameless in how we ‘celebrate’ Christmas. And we are the very ones who go on and on about how we are concerned over climate change and will cut down a tree, sit it in our homes for a few weeks and then throw it out on the curb for bulk trash pickup and yet, not see the hypocrisy in our actions. Americans are arrogance, personified, and it is most definitely on display come Christmastime.
Again, I thank you for your comment. And thank you for stopping by!
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🙂
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