What do the holidays mean?

After my rousing pod walk on Thanksgiving Day, I was very much looking forward to sitting in our family room, enjoying the sun streaming through the windows, drinking a nice cup of coffee and reading the paper. The calm before the storm, so to speak. We invited our neighbor over for a Thanksgiving meal. I just love Thanksgiving because it is all about friends and family and gratitude. I do not play into the retailers’ hands by going out shopping at 3 am and fighting the crowds just so I can buy the latest “hot” item.

I picked up the paper and noticed it was quite thick. “Good,” I am thinking, I will have a lot to tread. Alas, the paper had a BIG pile of ads (see below) and about four pages of reporting. I had to laugh at the headlines, “door busters.” This should be more aptly named, “budget busters.”

I refuse to buy into the buying frenzy. I do most of my shopping at small local stores. What I can’t find locally, I break down and buy online. Between Amazon and Zappos, I think I keep them in business.

What about you, how do you react to the holidays?