It’s that time of year again – the time when my inbox is flooded with ads and promotions from the various companies that I order things from online. It’s that time when our mailbox fills up with flyers, so much so that the poor mail-lady has a hard time getting everything in our mailbox unless, of course, our children see her coming down the street and rush out to get the mail from her. (When your school room is at the front of your house, this happens often. So, yes, my kids are friends with our mail carrier, or at least they are now.)
It’s that time when retail managers work overtime and have plenty of hours for everyone. That’s right, Black Friday cometh. It’s the day when crowd haters and shopping loathers sit home in their PJ’s with a cup of hot chocolate because they’ve already bought all their Christmas presents. It’s the day that when shopping lovers come out in droves and fight over that prized techno device that will be outdated by the time Christmas rolls around anyway. (And if you hadn’t guessed it by my tone, I’m the one sipping hot cocoa.) Black Friday!
Now, while no one is a bigger fan of good, old, American Capitalism, and while no one loves a deal more than I do; I am broken hearted that we have sacrificed our families yet again. We choose to keep our businesses open on weekends and holidays for the sake of profit and at the expense of the family. We play soccer games, have dance recitals, and football games on Sundays. Stores boast of opening their doors at 6pm on Thursday evening kicking off their Black FRIDAY sale. Everyone is in it to make a buck. And, again, no one believes in a free market economy more than I do. I mean, I am the one that thinks we should shut the public school system down completely in order to build high quality private schools. Stop collecting my school taxes, and I could afford the best school in the country. For that matter there would be more quality education than you could shake a stick at since only the best schools would survive. The market would naturally drive out the underperforming ones. They would simply die off in a completely privatized, free market education system. So I am a free market advocate through in through. The government should stop running everything. Period!
However, it pains me when I get flyers in the mail letting me know that the post office will deliver packages 365 days a year, even on Christmas. Christmas!? Are they serious? Even Walmart closes for Christmas. Why must we be so selfish as to need everything right NOW, thus driving the market of 24/7, 365 work schedules? My heart longs instead to see the family gathered around the dinner table again or around a Sunday afternoon meal together so that communication can occur and love can be freely expressed. I long to see the American family strengthened instead of constantly being torn apart. God bless the Hobby Lobby’s and Chick-fil-A’s of the world for letting Moms and Dads spend Sundays with their kids. I’m sure we can all do without a chicken nugget or two, and certainly we can go without our home décor and craft supplies just one more day.
Let’s honor the family by creating an atmosphere that respects the time that families need together on Sundays and holidays. Perhaps if we honored the family again, our businesses would actually grow since we’d have better, hardworking employees who were well refreshed during their day to rest and treasure family.
Image: By Gridprop at English Wikipedia – Transferred from en.wikipedia to Commons by Common Good using CommonsHelper.(Original text: I (Gridprop (talk)) created this work entirely by myself.), Public Domain, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=16773387
