I will not be participating in any Black Friday deals this year. Not at all. Not online. Not in store. Nope. Nada.
Over the last few years I have become shaken by what this day has become. People have been trampled TO DEATH so others could get a cheaper television or toys. This disturbs me to my core. That person's life was worth soooooo much more than that. I am also soooooo bothered by the fact that retailers are starting their Black Friday deals on Thursday morning! All those minimum wage employees now not only have to deal with being trampled on Friday, but they also have to miss out on family time on a holiday. I have never been a huge fan of shopping anyhow, so maybe it is just easy for me to give up the good deals and standing in lines for HOURS.
I saw something on Facebook a few weeks ago that stated if families just spent a little bit ($64) of their Christmas budgets on products made in the USA, it would equate to 200,000 new jobs in the US! That got me started thinking. Why wouldn't I want to support more jobs here? And that led me to my next thought, which was trying to support small businesses.... work at home mom style businesses. Make sure that the money and job security gets to the actual person doing the hard work rather than to a large corporation with fat cats sitting at the top. So, we are trying hard this year to purchase handmade, local (or local-ish.... for sure from the USA), and ethically made items for our Christmas gifts. We have decided that local services also are ok (gift certificate for a pedicure or some such thing) and that thrift stores for certain second hand items (books) are ok, too. I am considering making coupon books for the kids that will have coupons they can cash in for special time with either of us.... like maybe each of them will get a coupon for a date and dinner out, or a slumber party with a parent (movie and junk food and staying up way past bedtime), or..... I am not sure what else, but this is something I am working on figuring out.
This is making shopping into a unique challenge this year! I, for the life of me, am struggling to figure out what to buy for an 8 year old boy that is handmade. This kid only likes legos and Star Wars. However, it has made me realize that it doesn't really matter. We live such an abundant life! I will find some sort of trinket of this abundance to gift him for the day, but I don't want to gift him some cheap piece of plastic that a child in a foreign land had to make, knowing that we will be throwing out next year when he outgrows it. There is nothing that we actually NEED. We have everything we need.... clothing, shelter, food.
I want my children to understand how fortunate they are. It was not so many years ago that I remember going to Aldi with our last $12 to buy groceries for the week. It wasn't that many years ago that I needed my parents to purchase winter coats for the kids because we couldn't afford them. We are still not wealthy, by any stretch of the imagination (free and reduced lunches at school? yep, we qualify), but we are able to pay our bills (although sometimes the student loan number shows up on our caller ID). I was able to buy all the children winter jackets. We bought our crappy little house this year which provides us with warm shelter (and hilarious adventures). We have vehicles to get us around. We have the basics AND extras. When I really think of what it is to not be able to afford food, I am struck by how absolutely ABUNDANTLY we live. So, I want to somehow share that with my children and not shower them with so many gifts that they can't even remember they should be thankful.
I promise that I will not judge you if you are shopping on Friday. I will not judge if you spend a small fortune on Christmas, really. I realize that my ideas are not perfect. I feel like it is a start. And it gets me out of having to brave the crowds on a day that I would rather be hanging out with my kids at home.
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