Ho Ho Ho...No

I’m really glad that the Christmas season is over.  Really.

Every year, I see the insane footage from the Black Friday sales, which mark the official start of the Christmas buying season (also known as 6 pm Thanksgiving).  These bargain hunting power shoppers appear downright feral.  People have been killed, either for what they managed to get into their baskets or trampled in the rush to get into the stores.   It’s pretty vicious. 

There are so many reasons, most of which would take a doctoral thesis to cover, but at the very heart is our culture’s over-identification with stuff.  We’ve somehow got the notion that if you have the most (or most expensive) stuff then you’ve won something.  Or that you’re a better, more powerful, beautiful, skinnier version of yourself.  At least that’s what the advertisements need us to believe. It’s why the average American household is over $16,000 in credit card debt.  It’s why our landfills are full of shit that will take hundreds, if not thousands, of years to decompose. Personal storage is a $22 billion/year industry - for people who have so much stuff that it will no longer fit in their house. 

When you’re a kid, Christmas doesn’t have all these headaches.  For me, it was all about family and giving a list to my mama of things I wanted from the Sears catalog.  I know, I was seriously lucky.  My parents (and grandparents) worked really hard to make sure that my sister and I had wonderful holidays, including an elaborate set up in the living room of our gifts from “Santa”.   

I don’t think I appreciated the effort it took to pull that off I had kids of my own.   Just like my parents, I initially went in for the big, extravagant blow outs.  I remember one Christmas in particular my daughter actually started crying because she was tired of opening presents.  On top of that, my kids only played with a few of the toys we bought.  I could put the rest in a closet and pull them out throughout the year.  They thought we’d actually bought them more new toys!

That’s when I started to re-examine my take on Christmas.  I have to admit,  my foundation was shook.  The way I’d known my entire life just stopped making sense.  My husband and I decided that we needed to make some changes.  The very next year, we pared the gifts way down. It was funny to realize that it hardly put a dent in the kids’ fun.  Ours is a blended family.  Each of our children had (at least) two distinct Christmases, plus all the grandparents, aunts and uncles.  Gifts all over the place.  They hardly needed us to re-create Toys R Us in our living room. 

As they got older, and Santa Claus’ true identity was revealed, we stopped buying gifts altogether and just gave them cash.  It may seem cold, but I find nothing heartwarming or personal about fighting people at the mall to buy shit.  It’s pretty demoralizing, especially when this whole season is supposed to be about family, gratitude and love. 

Another thing I didn’t realize when I was a kid:  The guilty gift game that adults have to play.  Guilt because they got you something and you didn’t get them anything.  Or, guilt because their gift to you was way more expensive than what you bought for them.   It can drive you insane.  Or, my least favorite is trying to buy a gift for a distant relative you might see on Christmas, but you have no idea what they like - but you have to get them something.  They have no idea what you’d like either, so you end up exchanging gifts that neither of you like.  

Peppermint-coconut scented body spray?  Jeez, you really really shouldn’t have.  I mean, really. 

For the most part, my family and I have agreed to stop exchanging gifts - for the adults.  I can’t tell you what a fucking relief that has been.  It’s not about the money. Instead of buying gifts for each other, we adopt a family through a program and spend our holiday gift budget on them.  It’s totally sobering when you’re buying things for folks and they’re asking for simple things like school supplies or pajamas or blankets.   Doing that makes me feel joy.  Like I’m living in alignment with the Christmas spirit - which includes helping others - and I don’t mean helping others get a bigger TV. 

There’s nothing wrong with giving and receiving nice gifts for Christmas, but for me it was turning into a gift card exchange.   It just felt like a race to complete this running list in my head, which included figuring out a reasonable amount to spend on someone you may or may not have any real affection for.  Besides - and I may lose my woman card over this - I loathe shopping. It’s not a pastime for me, it’s a chore.  Most of what I buy is online.  Going into stores…trying on shit…going through racks or bins of crap?  That’s hellish. 

All I really want for Christmas was the health and safety of my family and friends.   I make a good living.  I want for very little.  Throughout the year, if see something I really like, I just buy it.  I don’t need more things.  Not things that money can buy anyway.   

Don’t get me wrong, I like stuff too, but it’s not everything.  It can’t replace the connection that we are all craving. 

I’m not shitting on Christmas, at least not in its entirety.  Outside of the shopping centers (and connected parking lots), I do notice a kinder, gentler spirit that seems to abound during the holidays.  I just wish we could bottle that up and spread it around the entire year.  Instead of going into January thinking about how to pay off all the crap we just bought, we would take the memories of the time we spent with those who mean the most to us.

I am enough. I have enough.

I don't like debt.

Let me tell you why.  Picture it...Sicily. 1933. Nah, just kidding.

Debt had me moving back in with my parents at the ripe old age of 23.  My first marriage was over and I had a $22,000 weight on my back when it was all said and done. Let's not forget that I had a new baby and no job. I had just finished college.

Why did I have so much debt you ask? Well, there may have been a car or 2 thrown in there...but if you had asked me at the time, I could not have told you where all that money was spent.  Dinners, clothes, shoes...STUFF that I thought I needed. I assumed that because I was now married (way too young, I might add) that I was somehow "supposed" to have certain things.  Let me be real here...no one in my family liked my first husband.  Some of you can identify with me on this. They tolerated him. They weren't wrong. He wasn't a bad person. We just weren't a good match. Looking back, I think I thought that having these things (and showing others that we had/did these things) meant that we were a grown-up couple and "we" were capable of doing and having all of the things that married folks should. Clearly, I was wrong...but I did get a beautiful little girl out of it, so I'm not complaining too much. My 34 year old self can now see that I didn't think that "we" were enough. I'm pretty sure that I was trying to establish myself as independent from my parents and as one with my husband. I just went about it in an ass-backwards way. Hey, you live, you learn...isn't that how the song goes?


It took years of sacrifice to get myself out of that hole. First, as I said before, I had to move back in with my parents...with a baby. If that wasn't a humbling experience, I don't know what is!  I did find an entry level job with a great company, but I had to forgo most of what I earned, that which wasn't going to my daughter's care, to this huge debt. Bonuses, income tax refunds, birthday money. It all went towards the debt. I went for years without buying myself something new. I wore the same clothes and shoes, took my lunch to work and counted the YEARS until I was debt free. I was pretty angry that I had allowed myself to get into this situation. I had about 8 or 9 creditors I was working with. It was too much for me to handle so I joined a debt counseling service, Myvesta.org.  They contacted my creditors and set up me up with a payment plan - 1 payment each month.  I also recognized that I needed to feel the consequences of my actions, so each month I made myself make my payment at a check cashing place - on the first of each month. If you want to know where the inhabitants of the Island of Broken Toys go to take care of their financial business, visit any check cashing joint in a metropolitan area on the first of the month. That will surely wake you up and tell you where you don't wanna be!

My point here is this:  In observing people now, that's my take when I see they are doing too much. You know, buying things that they clearly don't need for whatever reason they can come up with.  I know a friend's mother that has three closets full of clothes in her house, complete with about 5 bins of shoes. She often finds herself with too much month at the end of her money. However, this woman will tell you with a straight face that she has nothing to wear.  She travels regularly and has explained to me that she can't possibly wear the same outfits from the cruise she took a year ago because the same people usually frequent this trip over and over.  Lady: Do you really think people are looking at you thinking about what you wore last year? Do people really care that much about your wardrobe? Is this complicated? Let me give you the short answer: NO. What I have found so far in my short time on Earth is that people don't care about you and your struggles. They are too busy worrying about their own strife. It's not a judgement, its human nature - you deal with what's in front of you and usually that's your own life.  It's only your perception of what they think that's keeps you from shopping your own closet.

Don't get me wrong. I am a great admirer of pretty, shiny things. I have wants. Many of them. I just try to evaluate whether or not I can have all that I want right now. Does it make sense, in the greater context who I really want to be, financially speaking, to have everything (and make payments on it) right now? I don't begrudge anyone a purchase. Not at all. As long as you can afford it. As in...PAY CASH for it. 

When you find yourself in a situation where you are about to do something stupid with you money, just repeat after me: I am enough. I have enough..and remember the check cashing joints!