Stuff

We go from a day of counting our blessings (what we have) on Thanksgiving Day to an artificial day of frenetically acquiring more the day after. Those who would give even more hype to the commercialization of the holiday season have given shoppers the term Black Friday, when the meaning of the day after Thanksgiving has never really been a “breakeven point” for annual sales. What’s more important to retail is the number of days between that Friday and Christmas, which can vary between 26 and 32. This year there are 26, six less than 2007, a significant drop. The media just keeps spinning it.

The death of the KMart employee this year is the metaphor for the season. We go from stuffing to more stuff, and woe be to anyone who stands in the way of drastic price reductions. I don’t think this represents most of us this year, but it does fill the constant demand for news stories, and puts events here in perspective with the deaths in Mumbai.