It’s the season for sales and deals. Everyone is out shopping for friends and loved ones to find the perfect gifts. Sweaters, jeans, jackets, boots, and scarves are some of this season’s must haves for the holidays. But these are only a few of the things people will fight for.As I write, retail shops around the world are preparing for the biggest day in the capitalist world: Black Friday. As the day after Thanksgiving, Black Friday is the first official day to get Christmas shopping done without it being considered too early. However, in my opinion, I still think it is too early. Don’t’ get me wrong. I’m no scrooge, but after listening to Christmas music at work in a major toy store all day, seeing all of the deals, toys being yanked off the shelves by grabbing fingers, by the time Christmas gets here, I just can’t wait for it to be over.
Christmas used to be one of my favorite holidays, but mall madness is a little much for my liking. If it wasn’t for the crazy sales, playing of Christmas music before Thanksgiving, and putting out Christmas merchandise on Halloween night, things might be different.
After all, I still love seeing all of the lights around the neighborhoods go up, and snow is amazingly gorgeous, but not a whole lot of people take the time to look at the beauty of the winter season.
The start of winter season is the start of jammed malls and people having to get the newest trends before they aren’t cool anymore. Christmas is supposed to be the time for giving, not getting, but it doesn’t always seem that way.
A lot of companies (including the one I work for) sponsor donations for people and children less fortunate. There are days where I see more giving than I ever expect in money donations and toy donations. There are times I’m awed at how much people are willing to go the extra mile to help out.
But it seems there are more times where people just want to get the stuff they came in to buy and not be bothered with any further questions or offerings.
Sometimes we need to take a step back and think about what we have instead of what we want. However, this is very difficult with retail, because the employees’ objective of each business day is to sell, sell, sell; and guests want to buy what they want and get out before they spend more money than they planned on.
In numerous cases people tend to believe toy stores are in most demand during the holidays, and in many ways I agree with them. For instance, the hottest must have, absolutely can’t stand to live without toys this year are: “Sing-A-Ma-Jigs,” “Squinkies,” “Toy Story 3,” and “Disney Princess: Princess and Me” dolls, just to name a few. Among all of the trends, toy trends have got to be the shortest. It feels like just yesterday anyone and everyone had to have a “Zhu-zhu” pet. There were limitations on how many that people could get. There were mile long lines whenever they arrived in stores. It was nearly impossible to keep them on shelves, but now that they are everywhere, they aren’t nearly as popular.
Supply and demand runs the retail world, whether we like it or not. Everyone likes getting presents, but there are many children in this world who are lucky to get one present at all.
When I was a kid, I would make pages and pages for my Christmas list and would get upset if I didn’t get everything I wanted, but now that I’m older my list usually consists of about four or five things, and it’s only because my grandma needs that list, but if it’s not necessarily what I wanted, I still appreciate the effort my loved one went to get it for me.
I love that I have friends and family who love me enough to think of me when it comes to their Christmas shopping list, but I would much rather look at who is on my shopping list and plan gifts for them than think, “I don’t want to get them something because they probably won’t get me anything.”
I also don’t buy for the sake of buying something; all of my gifts are unique to the recipient. Sometimes, that’s more important than the hottest trend.