The true meaning of Christmas

They're finding out now that no Christmas is coming./They're just waking up, I know just what they'll do./ Their mouths will hang open a minute or two,/then the Whos down in Whoville will all cry, "Boo Hoo.'

That's a sound, said the Grinch, that I simply must hear.

Yesterday, before dawn, when the sensible Whos down in Whoville were still asnooze, the valiant, the thrifty, the brave, the desperate, the greedy, and the addicted to shopping, lined up outside stores and malls across America, visions of bargain-priced laptops and exorbitant but rare Xbox 360s dancing in their heads.  At a Wal-Mart near here hundreds gathered behind a rope waiting anxiously until a clerk pronounced the Christmas season underway with, according to one shopper, these festive words:

"On your mark.  Get set.  Kill each other."

Then, reports Tony Lystra of the Times Herald-Record:

The crowd rushed to the back of the store, hoping to snatch up what customers called a dismally scarce supply of cheap laptops, portable DVD players and cell phones.

Jessica Redner, 31, of Middletown, said she saw several women pushed to the floor.

"You can't stop to help them, because you're the next one down," she said.

As a 300-pound man pinned Redner's small frame against a cash register, employees began screaming expletives at the crowd, she said. And the crowd shouted back at them – and at each other.

Yesterday afternoon, Redner said her arm still bore a scrape from the debacle.

"It's disgusting," she said of her experience.

John Becht, 36, of Mount Hope, was also in the crowd, pinned in a corner. Employees, who looked frightened and bewildered, began hurling DVD players into the crowd, he said.

Somewhere in that crowd was a team of seven women, seasoned shoppers, veterans of many a Black Friday, women who were ready to fight for their bargains like Blondie and Trixie at Tudbury's.  They were equipped with walkie-talkies, detailed lists, and a plan that they abandoned when they heard the blood-curdling screams and saw the small appliances begin to fly.

Kristina Wells of the Times Herald-Record was along to tell the tale of a shopping Dunkirk:

Lynn Hayes leaned on her shopping cart – which, of course, had a busted wheel – and watched a packaged Hewlett-Packard laptop computer sail through the air.

Shouts. Screams. Discount-hungry humans reached out for the descending loot, the crowd ebbing and flowing toward the computer box.

"Oh, my God."

Deeply discounted portable DVD/CD players and LCD TVs soon followed as Monroe Wal-Mart employees mounted a countertop and tossed electronic swag into a sea of hands about 5:45 a.m. yesterday.

"This," Hayes said, shaking her head, "is, like, total madness."

Too much even for Hayes of Highland Falls, a seasoned Black Friday buyer who for the past 10 years has led an elite unit of savvy shoppers into bargain battle.

"I'm getting out of this mess," Hayes shouts into a walkie-talkie to her girlfriends fanned out across the discount department store. "I'll be in Orange County Jail if I don't."

           (snip)

"I'm not doing well at all," says Christine Rodriguez, who didn't get the $378 laptop computer she wanted, but didn't really need. "I've never seen it this bad."

Colleen Gilman, sans cart, crosses paths with Hayes and utters: "I got nothing. I'm scared of everyone."

The team rendezvoused at a local diner where they admitted to being discouraged, but not defeated.  They'll be back, they vowed, next year.

He hadn't stopped Christmas from coming,/it came just the same...

And the Grinch with his Grinch feet ice cold in the snow/stood puzzling and puzzling, "How could it be so?

"It came without ribbons! It came without tags!/It came without packages, boxes, or bags!"

He puzzled and puzzled till his puzzler was sore/Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before!

Maybe Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store./Maybe Christmas...perhaps...means a little bit more...

Comments

[Ally]

Yeah, I had the same disgusted and depressed response to the news this year. It is so sad to see this and then to see my fellow citizens railing about an attack on christmas because some clerk says "happy holidays". I guess America has always been this way. Most people don't understand the Constitution and don't get the whole concept of democracy, and probably never will. A majority now think Bush is a liar and an asshole. Big deal. Just wait until the next nimrod needs their blind obedience after the next dramatic domestic terrorist attack. Well, Merry Christmas you F***ing Bastards.

[Earl Bockenfeld]

Stan Freberg and his great 'Green Chri$tma$' still has a punch but not as hefty as some of those 1st day shoppers.

CRATCHET: Well, I guess you fellows will never change.
SCROOGE: Why should we? Christmas has two s's in it, and they're both dollar signs.
CRATCHET: Yeah, but they weren't there to begin with.
SCROOGE: Eh?
CRATCHET: The people keep hoping you'll remember. But you never do.
SCROOGE: Remember what?

CRATCHET: Whose birthday we're celebrating.
SCROOGE: Well, ....... don't get me wrong. The story of Christmas, in its simplicity, is a good thing - I'll buy that. It's just that we know a good thing when we see it.
CRATCHET: But don't you realize Christmas has a significance, a meaning.
SCROOGE: A sales curve! Wake up, Cratchet, it's later than you think.
CRATCHET: I know, Mr. Scrooge, I know.
CHORUS: On the first day of Christmas,
The advertising's there, with
Newspaper ads,
Billboards too,
Business Christmas cards,
And commercials on a pear tree. . .
Jingles here, jingles there,
Jingles all the way.
Dashing through the snow,
In a fifty-foot coup-e
O'er the fields we go,
Selling all the way. . .
Deck the halls with advertising,
What's the use of compromising,
Fa la la la la la la la la.

MUSIC: AS TRADITIONAL HYMNS ATTEMPT TO BREAK THROUGH THE MUSICAL ENDING, IT BUILDS TO A CRESCENDO. WE HEAR "JINGLE BELLS" PUNCTUATED WITH THE SOUND OF A CASH REGISTER RINGING UP SALES. ON THE LAST NOTE OF THE MUSIC, WE HEAR MONEY DROPPING IN AND THE CASH REGISTER SLAMMING SHUT!

[cali dem]

Is this the first year the day after Thanksgiving has been called "Black Friday?" What happened to "buy nothing day?"

[Linkmeister]

I heard one of the "buy nothing day" proponents on the radio yesterday. It's still out there. On the other hand, we've all read how newspapers aren't making as much money as they'd like, so they're plumping for their advertisers by promoting "Black Friday." It's not the first time that phrase has been used, but it did seem a little more prominent this year.

Too cynical? Maybe.

[Exiled in NJ]

The phrase was usually preceded, at least by local television news, as 'the traditional Black Friday.' In accounting circles, it was the day merchants books would go from the red into the black.

[Fledermaus]

Count me in among those who have never heard "Black Friday" before this year. This is all part of some circle, the retailers are worried about sales because everyone is worse off so the local news outlets are pimping the "everyone is shopping til they drop" in order to create some keeping up with the Jonses self destructive buying spree.

Of course I get really cynical about this sort of commericalist crap, so I could be wrong about this.

[The Viscount]

I think Black Friday is an apt description. I would never subject myself to going to the stores on that day.

Why aren't the idiots like Charles Gibson or Shill O'Reilly offended by the greed, avarice and sickening behavior of people who trample over women so they can get a good deal?

"When Black Friday comes
I'm gonna dig myself a hole
Gonna lay down in it 'til
I satisfy my soul
Gonna let the world pass by me
The Archbishop's gonna sanctify me
And if he don't come across
I'm gonna let it roll
When Black Friday comes
I'm gonna stake my claim
I'll guess I'll change my name"

From "Black Friday" by Walter Becker and Donald Fagen

[isabelita]

That Steely Dan song which you cite was about the stock market crash back in 1929, but it has a certain timeless quality to it, doncha think?

[Exiled in NJ]

Imagine the reaction of the Faux News boys had the Monroe Walmart scene taken place in New Orleans after Katrina.

[Anne Laurie]

On the other hand, I was in a Toys'R'Usurious last night, Saturday evening post-Thanksgiving, and the crowds were no greater than I'd expect for a "normal" Saturday. Nor did the displays give much evidence of being picked over, much less trashed. There's certainly an unusual level of free-floating anxiety in the air (& on the internets) this season, but I think (hope?) that the particular terror of retailers pushing exaggerated BARGAINS! in LIMITED QUANTITIES! at ever-more-unrealistic opening hours may have reached its terminal efflorescence this year. (And, yes, this is the first time I've heard the phrase "Black Friday" used on the local tv news, although it was widely used in the business pages.) All the chain stores are terrified, not so much about particular sales levels, but about Missing Their Earnings Goals by some fraction of a percentage point and thereby taking down their stock value on Wall Street. (Again, the local news was reporting on Saturday about Friday's sales levels, or the conflicting tallies of such sales levels by the retailers, the credit companies, and the sales-tracking companies -- very meta.) I think the advertising-driven, the "traditionalists", and the desperate may have finished their shopping battles before noon on Friday, salivating like Pavlov's dogs after retailer-driven loss-leaders and fad-shortages. But I'm really waiting to see the reported sales for the next couple of pre-Xmas weekends, because I wonder if the spiral of Wall-Street-driven chains pursuing media-driven consumers may have reached its natural implosion point.

[harry near indy]

i went into the local branch of my bank on friday, the day after thanksgiving, and talked with one of the tellers about the deep foolishness of christmas shopping during the weekend after thanksgiving.

she made a very interesting point -- the people who go there like excitement in their lives. it gives them a thrill.

on the good side, some people do more daredevlish things than i would -- like climb mountains or race cars.

on the bad side, some people are trying to recreate the moderately to deeply dysfunctional situations in which they were raised -- when you didn't know if the alcoholic parent would be nice or nasty.

they aren't real comfortable with peace and quiet and a regular process in life, like a stream flowing at its regular pace. so they recreate chaos and disorder.

people who do this are drama royalty -- kings and queens.

[Exiled in NJ]

harry, your bank teller hit the nail on its head. When I read the link about the shopping group with walkie-talkies, it reminded me of some type of team sport, like the touch football we used to play every Saturday, or on the beach in summer, when the cry would go out to get the women and children off the sand. Pictures of Pamplona came to mind. Yes there is a little greed mixed into it, but it is also the thrill of being able to belly up to the bar, or the buffet, and say 'I got a real steal on a laptop at Walmart.' The laugh is on the buyers. Every piece of equipment I've ever bought from HP or Compaq has been crap.

[queezy]

What is really da tru meaning of christmas?dis sucks WIERD

dis says notin