I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys.
- Charles Dickens
A local grocery store here in Rochester, New York, part of a large chain (I won't name it), has had Christmas ornaments on display near its entrance since the first week in October. This was while we were still having unseasonable heat. Up here in the land of snow and more snow, people were wearing cut-off shorts and tank-tops as they made their way past the dancing Christmas elves and glowing colored ornaments.
Every year, it seems, the Christmas shopping season starts subtly earlier. My usual joke is that they move it up about four hours each year so that we won't notice. When I was a kid growing up in a small town, the street decorations would come up around Thanksgiving. By the time I graduated from high school, the ornaments were up just after Halloween. Now, I see Christmas store displays up in early October, at least a week before anything overtly related to Halloween is with them.
About a week later, a sign was posted near the Christmas display. It was handwritten - not on official company stationery. It said something like this: "We understand it is not yet the holiday shopping season. This display is up for people who wish to start their shopping early. If you do not wish to shop early, don't let this display bother you." The sign was removed a couple of days later.
This all seems funny, at least to a point. I'll bet just about anyone working at the store had a smirk or two at the early Christmas display. They weren't laughing, though, when they, not the corporate policy makers, had to field the whining complaints about holiday commercialism. Someone (or maybe everyone) at the store was tired of having to make excuses for a policy he or she did not devise. Hence, the sign goes up. It seems likely that someone in higher authority told them to take it down.
For more than a century, the holiday season has been an era of overt commercialism in America. Anyone growing up in our era knows this, and we're used to it. For some people, it is offensive. For commercial interests, it is an essential structure in financial survival. I don't think that it makes sense to react too much one way or the other. The holidays can be a time of generosity, or selfishness, or both at once, and no matter what commercial interests do, we can make it happen any way we wish. People who are paid to act on commercial interests on behalf of the holidays, though, are not doing so because they themselves are out to destroy Christmas. They're just doing their jobs.
2 comments:
Nicely said, Jim. And while we're at it, can we agree that it's not the fault of the cashiers that the lines are long and the stores don't have what we're looking for, especially in the last few days before Christmas? When I was in high school I worked as a cashier, and some of those customers were downright nasty!! (Others were very nice, as you might expect.) If anyone is to blame for long lines, it's the store management, who doesn't hire enough help, not the poor clerks on the front lines. And as for stores not having merchandise, I guess that's why you should shop early, or call ahead. It's not the cashier's fault if there haven't been any Tickle-Me Elmos in stock for a week. She doesn't like it any more than you do! Right?
I agree completely, Karen. It is easy to look at a store employee as the originator of the store's policy - the "face of the company." It surely is undermining to the Christmas spirit when we decide the clerks are merely the means for us to get all the stuff we want. As the Grinch said, Christmas doesn't come from a store.
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