The Shoemaker Bugle

By The Grinch

It feels sad to me that all we care about now are the sales and online purchases for the holiday seasons and not the fact that we get to enjoy the holidays. 

I try my best to avoid holiday shopping, but my family is so consumed by the sales of clothes and toys that it’s hard to avoid. Even seeing the Christmas commercials in November brings an icky feeling to my chest. I find it upsetting that Christmas lost its meaning, and it really is like the movies with the people rushing around grabbing all the toys from the shelf. I described Black Friday and holiday shopping as “ridiculous.” It is such a hassle to get the items you want for Christmas and since people every year decide to start shopping early, now everyone is deciding to shop early. If we continue like this we might as well start Christmas shopping in September.

I’m not saying that the gifts I have received in the past years have been terrible; the shopping itself is a nightmare. In the time during Covid when we bought everything online it felt even worse. There are many issues with Black Friday starting with the hours, employees availability, and now the shopping experience. 

Employees will probably have the hardest time getting through work when the holidays come by. During the holidays I experience so many employees rushing and going through all the aisles to deliver the shoppers items or even stock the shelves. I have tried my best to avoid shopping in stores to avoid conflicts like pricing and the risk of it being out of stock by the time I have the money for it. I watch as my family bargains and rushes to get gifts out of the way due to their past experiences with Christmas shopping. Even though their techniques are effective, soon enough other people will follow. Like this recent month, Thanksgiving hadn’t even passed and there were deals, trees, red, white, and green everywhere. It boils my blood to see so many people rushing through the holidays just for the deals.

I asked multiple sources how they felt about the Christmas season starting early and this is what they said:

One of my friends had a very enthusiastic opinion that Christmas shopping early was “good,” but that was because they were able to buy more at an affordable price. 

Another anonymous source notes, “I think it’s good to shop early because of the sales and that you can save money. The only thing that makes it ridiculous is dealing with people at the store and the lines.”

Holiday shopping, especially so early, feels like a lot of stress and planning that is only gonna last until those kids tear into those presents.

If there were any solutions to avoiding the conflicts of holiday shopping it would be to shop online or do pick-up in the store. If you wanna avoid the rush of people and store sales, online shopping will always have deals going on until the holiday season is over.

Avoid the rush, people; and please don’t start holiday shopping during August next year.