Day After Thanksgiving Sale

I was going to post this yesterday, but it was my son’s birthday and I wanted to write about him.

The custom for the day after Thanksgiving in our culture is to go the all the sales that start at five o’clock in the morning. This means after cooking all day you’ll need to get up by four thirty in the morning in order to be on line for the great deals that await you.

You might as well know, I am one of those crazy people who do this. Since the kids were little and we didn’t have much money, I wanted to make the most of the budgeted amount of money we had for their presents. Now before you start to go that place in your head where you argue that Christmas has become commercialized, blah, blah, blah, let me say this, I agree. But that’s not the point of this story. I love Christmas time and the shopping of presents to bring a smile to my family’s faces.

I believe what I told my kids when they were little and we didn’t want to lie to them about Santa Claus. My family by the way still haven’t forgiveness us for that one. We told them about a man named St. Nick and the good that he did and how that developed into Santa Claus. We also told them that some children believed he was real and that they should never tell them he was only pretend.

We told them that on their birthdays they are the only ones who get presents because we celebrate the fact that they were born on that very special day. But on Jesus’ birthday, He was so special because of what He did for us, everyone gets presents and we decorate the house and celebrate Him by having a big party. We use to bake Jesus a birthday cake and sing, Happy Birthday to Him.

Here’s a side story about Santa Claus: When my daughter was five years old, she went to a private Christian school in New York. Her class went to a retirement home to sing for the elderly. Afterwards the children talked to the residents. That night we asked her, “How did it go?”

She told us, “It was good. I was talking to this lady who was really old and she asked me what I wanted Santa Claus to bring me for Christmas. I just told her what I wanted for Christmas. I figured if she was that old and still believed in Santa Claus I wasn’t going to tell her the truth.” She was a very articulate child.

Back to the sales. I always enjoyed shopping and getting something I know my family will love and at an affordable price. Something I noticed as the kids got older is that the things they wanted were more expensive. So now they get fewer things and it doesn’t take as long. So I picked up the couple of items on their list and I got to go back home and sleep for a few hours.

© Nadine Z. 2006