Last Chance

Tis the season of sales......or so it would seem judging by the traffic in my email in box recently.  Advertising emails have apparently replaced old fashioned paper junk mail but the intent is the same.  It seems as though not a minute or two can go by without a new offer for a must-have, last minute item appearing before me on my computer screen. From sweaters and mass produced jewelry to electronics and snow blowers, it is all on sale "for today only".  Really? I've lost track of the number of final offers that reappear under the headlines of "sale extended" the next day.  And of course everyone is offering free shipping with a guaranteed delivery by Christmas Day. Maybe I am too cynical but it seems as though mass consumerism has taken over the holidays with no celebration being complete without a towering pile of wrapped, but unneeded items sitting under the tree.  Do we really need more stuff?

 

And now it is Christmas Eve and I once again woke to find my inbox filled with more promotions for even more last minute deals.  I suppose with Christmas itself being mere hours away the end is in sight (but I'm also receiving post Christmas sale notices now).  I know I am a planner but how is it that with Christmas sales starting in November and stores opening on Thanksgiving Day, that people are still shopping at the last minute.  Are their gift giving lists that big, do they simply procrastinate, or are they holding out hope for an even bigger and better last minute deal?  Who are these shoppers anyway and more importantly, who are they buying these special gifts for?

 

Perhaps it is physical distance from the American holiday shopping chaos that is allowing me to be so cynical.  I haven't stepped foot in an American shopping mall in years and have only ventured into the Albanian ones a handful of times under complete duress.  Relying on a restrictive mail system that can take any where from two to six weeks to deliver packages from the US to Albania means that any online shopping I planned on doing had to be completed long before the Thanksgiving / Black Friday shopping frenzy.  So attention Target, Gap, Williams Sonoma, Amazon, and everyone else who has been spamming my inbox with deals, these offers are totally lost on me.  While I have yet to wrap the few gifts we exchange, they were purchased and received months ago.  That means that instead of taking part in the feeding frenzy we've been decorating our house, baking holiday goodies, and spending time together as a family.  And that is what this season should be about.

 

Merry Christmas everyone!

Black Friday and Cyber Monday Craziness

One of the few things that makes me embarrassed to be an American is the chaotic mob scenes and feeding frenzy that surround Black Friday.  Forget the mass consumerism aspect of what the holidays have become; it is the actual shopping madness that turns me off the most.  While most of the world was waking up, heading to work for the last day of the week, and going about their everyday business, millions of Americans were standing in line, braving crowds, and in some cases storming stores in order to score what they deemed was a great deal.  Why does the idea of buying an item, that you probably don't need in the first place, at a reduced price, drive us to join in the feeding frenzy? From stories of young children being left alone in cold vehicles while adults shop to women engaging in fist fights and guns being pulled on fellow bargain hunters, reports of these behaviors is down right humiliating.  And let us not forget the Walmart employee who was trampled to death by a crowd of over eager shoppers a few years ago.  Really?  For a Walmart item?  What on earth does Walmart sell that is so special that it causes a stampede?  Every year news reports show footage of people camping out in front of big box electronics stores so that they can get their hands on  that year's "must have" item.  Is a 51 inch flat screen television worth it?  Is receiving a free sample size of lotion because you were one of the first one hundred people to enter the store worth staying up all night?

I love a good deal just as much as the next person (maybe more) but I just don't see the attraction of this shopping frenzy.  Maybe I am jaded from my early post-college years when I worked in retail.  My Thanksgivings were never spent with family since I had to work at crack 'o dawn on Friday morning.  (I guess I should be grateful that this was in the days before stores decided to open on Thursday night).  Perhaps it is having seen the deal seeking crowds first hand that was enough to turn me off from the shopping craze.  I once had a boyfriend whose mother was a Black Friday shopping fanatic.  She would go to bed early on Thanksgiving evening so she could be the first one in the stores in the morning.  She developed her shopping strategy around who was giving away freebies at which hour and usually came home with a variety of useless items whose only appropriate use were the office white elephant party.

The Internet age has ushered in the online equivalent of the Friday shopping spectacle:  Cyber Monday.  Much like its end of the week counterpart, this is the day where great Internet deals are supposed to abound.  Maybe this is a calmer, more civilized way of shopping; I have no idea since it all takes place behind closed doors with no witnesses if you get in a fist fight with your spouse over who gets control the computer.  The irony of it all is that, like Black Friday's sales that actually begin on Thanksgiving evening, many of Cyber Monday's steals began on Saturday.   And how many of these deals are really deals?  Many of these so-called deals that keep popping up in my in-box offer no more of a savings than those that were appearing last week or even last month.  My response to each new offer is to promptly click delete but I'm probably in the minority on this since 52% of shoppers are planning on completing their holiday shopping online this year.  But will they all be shopping on Cyber Monday? Or will they be holding out for a better deal?

I recently had a conversation with several international friends about what it means to be American and what others think of as America.  It saddened me to hear that some of the first responses involved shopping malls, miles of highways, and Oprah.  Really? Italy has great food, Paris has the Eiffel Tower and the United States has Walmart?  What does that say about our country and our culture?  How do we break this stereo-type?  Images of brawling bargain hunters buying mass quantities of cheap Chinese produced merchandise certainly isn't the answer.  Maybe I need to just accept America for what it is:  the land of the free and the home of the brave and mass consumerism.