Gifts and Orange Juice

The Christmas Season is upon us. Generally speaking I claim to dislike the Christmas season because of what it means along the lines of consumerism. Just over a week ago I was watching people trample each other in attempt to get the new PS3. Thinking about it now it reminds me of images I’ve seen coming from countries that are suffering from famine, as people press toward supply trucks. Friday of course was ‘Black Friday’ or as I prefer ‘Buy Nothing Day.’ I bought some cheese, whipping cream, chocolate truffles, bananas, and a shopping bag. I had completely forgotten about Buy Nothing Day until I got home and listened to an NPR story in which a man had waited outside of a Best Buy starting at 8 PM the night before to buy at computer monitor. My intro paragraph is getting away from my point so I am going to leave it there.

“This year instead of drawing names and exchanging presents we are going to buy presents for children of a nearby community.” This announcement was made by one of the supervisors of La Maison Hereuse, the residence for developmentally disabled individuals, where I live. To this the more vocal residents cheered. “We will still draw each other’s names but we’ll only exchange cards with nice messages. We will not exchange gifts. The gifts will be for the children.” Then there was more cheering and excitement at the prospect of giving gifts to the children.

I don’t have a cohesive response to this event so I will simply note some thoughts.
What have we done to America?
Consumerism is as bad here, so, what have we done to ourselves?
Giving is good. Receiving is good.
What happens though when giving gifts encourages the development of greed?
I have already received an advance on Christmas presents (a milk frother) this year.
Frothy orange juice tastes really light and airy and good.
I bet fresh squeezed frothed orange juice would be amazing.