shop till you drop — dead from the trampling!
Right now, I’m kind of viewing these blog entries as accompaniment to the Hambox Advent Calendar. An in-depth view of the theme for the day, maybe. Perhaps a darker view! That applies to today, at least.
Today’s Hambox Advent Calendar Window: December 2, 2008 — Start Your Shopping! Now that the Season of Consumerism is upon us, we will provide the gift ideas — what to buy and what definitely NOT to buy. We’ll even have a commercial break to sell you even more stuff!
Sorry about the title of this blog post, but that Black Friday story was black, indeed. And I’m the hypocrite, over here — after all my yap yapping about Buy Nothing Day, I went out and bought my pink Christmas tree. Granted, it was on sale for fifteen bucks, but could I have picked anything more ridiculously frivolous?*
SF Chronicle columnist Mark Morford, in Black Friday Die Die Die, wrote a scathing indictment of Black Friday and American consumerism a full year ago:
Some say Christmas day most accurately captures the true nature of the American spirit. Some say it’s Easter. Or the Fourth of July. They are all wrong. Black Friday has become, far and away, the most glorious expression of the true American idea, the gleaming capitalist leviathan at its most violent and orgasmic. Deny it at your peril.
Oof! Well, anyway. The Advent Calendar will have a lighter touch. If you’re new to the Hambox Advent Calendar, welcome! Leave your comments below. You rock.
*Yet I love it so. I’m finding my friends — at least, those on Facebook — are 50/50 divided between loving it and absolutely loathing it. Yay!
Really?! But what’s not to love? Your tree if FABulous. All the hatin’ is probably just jealousy. :p
I was a Buy Nothing Day soldier one year. (Kinda like how I once was a vegetarian for all of a month.) But not having lots of moolah, the practical gal in me took my idealist gal and bodyslammed her into unconsciousness.
Besides, no one knows when or where love is going to happen. Nor does one know when or where a FABulous pink christmas tree is going to appear. One needs to strike when the opportunity avails itself. Who are we to question fate?
I want to know what happened to all the wonderful earrings advertised on page 44 of the Lord & Taylor catalog. Especially the gold-and-ruby hearts pierced by arrows. Painfully chic! I also really like the description of the earrings with the “one big fake amethyst.”