My inbox is now filling up with notifications of great Cyber Monday deals, which, by coincidence, are pretty much exactly the same as the Black Friday deals. This and another four weeks of Christmas music everywhere you turn.
It’s not that I hate the holidays or anything…but I kind of do. Christmas in particular–you know, that nutty holiday originally celebrated as the birth of Christ–is now like U.S. elections, seemingly never-ending. And there is no subtle context here, no need to dig to find the reasons, it’s simply because the retail sector wants us to buy their junk and if they can convince you to start Christmas shopping in September, I guess they figure you’ll buy more stuff rather than just get your shopping done three months early and spend the rest of the time annoyed by the millionth playing of “Jingle Bells” on any store’s music system.
The best part about my complaint is that A Charlie Brown Christmas pointed all of this out 50 years ago, and It’s a Wonderful Life did it 19 years before that, in 1946. I’m pretty sure there are cave drawings of carolers being attacked. This is to say that not only is my complaint not new, it’s as old as the universe itself, or pretty close.
Anyway, as part of the Black Friday consumer madness I went out and bought groceries, none of which was holiday-themed.
Then today I went out and bought an Apple Watch. But I did it because my partner also got one and somehow that made it seem logical and proper. Plus today is neither Black Friday nor Cyber Monday. So I’m good.
Yep.
(I’ll have my thoughts on the watch in a few days or so once I’ve gotten used to it. I got the smaller 38 mm model and will say already that it’s lighter and more svelte than I had expected, so that’s a plus. I kind of think Steve Jobs would have hated it, though. More soon™.)
