The days between Thanksgiving and Christmas used to be marked with Advent calendars and printed newspaper reminders of how many shopping days were left until Dec. 25. Now this holiday shopping period is crowded with Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, Cyber Monday … and what are we forgetting?
It’s still November and many of us already have shopper’s fatigue. We wonder, how does Santa Claus do it? Well, for starters, in case you didn’t notice, he basically ignored all the hustle and bustle of the Black Friday and weekend shopping mall mayhem. Instead, we followed Santa to the Geyserville lighted tractor parade, the Forestville tree lighting ceremony and downtown Healdsburg’s Holiday Party. We can report the old fella looked very jolly and full of old-fashioned Christmas spirit.
Meanwhile, according to a survey by the National Retail Federation (NRF), only 42 percent of the shopping public said they were actually “happy” and 26 percent confessed to being “overwhelmed.”
It’s true that more and more Christmas shopping is being done by all of us through Amazon and other online retailers. The NRF’s annual shopping survey predicts that 59 percent of us will fill out our gift lists with more online purchases than we made last year, $107 billion worth. It’s just too easy to shop from home or with a computer. It’s a big, big part of our future.
But, just like the Santa Claus we followed around last weekend, we still know where to go to find the true spirit of the holidays. It’s not on Facebook; it’s not in a crowded parking lot with too many overwhelmed people either. It’s at a lighted tractor parade, a Bob Burke’s Kids party in Occidental (Dec. 6) or the helicopter visit by Santa at the county’s Pacific Air Museum (Dec. 17.)
What can we not buy online or from Amazon this holiday shopping season? How about the sight of a hundred Charlie Brown Christmas Trees on the Windsor Town Green or a Healdsburg Community Band concert in Cloverdale (Dec. 8)?
And, look what our first responders are up to these days after fighting the North Bay wildfires last month. They are busy escorting Santa to all the community tree lighting ceremonies from Sebastopol to Healdsburg to Guerneville and beyond.
Lots of us have been complaining about the commercialization of Christmas for decades. We worry about preserving our hometown holiday traditions and believe this is more challenging than ever. (It’s worth another mention here that shopping locally helps the most.)
We should be giving joy and gratitude for living in communities that still have caroling, craft fairs, holiday parades and lots of Santa Claus helpers. Not even the disastrous wildfires and recovery from all the losses are keeping us from celebrating. If anything, our family gatherings and community events seem bigger and filled with new feelings for one another.
We guess the day will come when Black Friday or Cyber Monday will replace local store shopping and what gift giving used to mean. We hope this isn’t so, but even Santa Claus can’t keep up with Amazon. Santa can still deliver hand-knitted socks and small wooden toys but we want voice-controlled smart home devices and virtual reality headsets. Maybe Santa still delivers all his gifts for free but so does Amazon and we don’t have to wait until Christmas morning.
We don’t know about everyone else, but we find ourselves wanting to believe in Santa Claus more than ever. We’ve even grown fond of Dr. Seuss’ Grinch. Remember how the Grinch stole all the Christmas presents in Whoville on Christmas Eve, only to hear all the Whos singing cheerfully on Christmas morning anyway?
And next the Grinch’s heart grew three sizes and he discovered the true meaning of Christmas.
Maybe the Grinch is reminding us to shop for gifts with our hearts and not with a computer.
