CHRISTMAS! Can you say “B-a-a-a-a-ah!”?

I often write stories about my three goats, ‘Smeck’, ‘Kramer’, and ‘Billy’. Today, I am going to write about sheep. These sheep are all around us! These are the people who have been sucked into the commercial aspect of Christmas!

When I was a kid growing up in the 70’s, people used to get paid every week. Then somebody decided they could force you to wait two weeks for your weekly pay. (Did you know that most employers at one time were supposed to pay a fine for paying people bi-weekly?)

Now, bi-weekly payments are the most common. Probably so your employer can earn a little interest on YOUR money for that extra week or something. I don’t really KNOW why people get paid bi-weekly, and I don’t really care, except to say that it is CRAP, and people should demand that they be paid every week.

Anyway, as I often do, I am getting off subject.! Many of you are sheep! Facebook is full of Christmas memes, Christmas photos, and Christmas videos. People have already started decorating their yards, and I have already seen a truck load of Christmas trees on its way to somewhere or other.

WHY is this happening? We haven’t even had Thanksgiving yet! It is happening, because retailers are BLASTING you with Christmas BEFORE Halloween! And they are doing this, because THEY WANT YOUR MONEY, because they know that there are currently only THREE PAYDAYS till Christmas!

SO! Flock to your local retail giant! Exploit the workers at our nation’s largest employers! Shop BEFORE Black Friday (is that a racist term yet? I can’t keep up)! Get mad when what you bought Uncle Carl last week goes on sale for 50% off on Christmas Eve! SHOP! SHOP!! SHOP!!!

(Or you can wait a few days until I get myself organized, and tell you a few ways you can take some money out of the pockets of Fat Cat CEO’s by shopping small business! *** Check my friend Conni’s link over on the right…She is a mother of TRIPLETS for Pete’s sake!  Now THERE is a small business that can appreciate your holiday shopping!)

((Who am I kidding? Even if we DO shop small business, we are going back to the box stores for our clothing and groceries anyway! So that CEO has to wait a few extra weeks for the money to come in…So what?!? But if you shop small business, you will help those folks be able to shop big business AFTER the holidays!))

 

In closing SHOP all you want!  You smart folks started your Christmas shopping back in Dec of 2014…But PLEASE for the sake of those around you who actually LOVE celebrating Christmas, can we please just have Thanksgiving first?  That is important too!  It is the time we are supposed to be thankful for the things we have before we start pleading for all the things we want!!  (If you really love my blog, and want to think of me this Christmas Season…I would LOVE a new, (or used) 12 gauge pump shotgun!)

After Thanksgiving, it will get cold and snowy, the lights on the tees, and in the windows will be warm and inviting. The music, especially the songs that tell of the birth of Christ that have been sung by a choir, and even the ones that speak of drunken grandmothers, and questionable sleigh pilots colliding will bring back memories of sharing Christmas with friends and family…it will FEEL like Christmas!

Right now?  It’s just CREEPY!  Lawns are decorated with: rotting pumpkins, spooky spider webs, fat turkeys and pilgrims (You better enjoy those while you can!  With all the attacks on freedom of expression you can bet your sweet cornucopia pilgrim decorations will be on the endangered species list soon!), mixed right in there with Snoopys, Mickey Mouses, and Grinches all dressed in Santa hats!dq5i6

Doug Alley

About Doug Alley

I grew up in Bath, Maine in an upper lower class family with 3 step sisters, a step brother, and a little sister. After high school I spent 3 years serving in the USAF at Elmendorf AFB in Anchorage AK. I've competed in, and won, demolition derbies. I've competed in, and never won, stock car races. I am the 47-year-old father of an 11-year-old boy who is pretty sure he is smarter than I ever was. We live on a little less than an acre of land in a 1973 mobile home in Stetson with my wife Jen, some cats, a few chickens, and rabbits, and a couple of goats. I hunt, fish, camp out, dabble in photography, gardening, and I cook in variable degrees of near success.