Didn’t you know winter means Christmas

This isn’t going to have anything to do with winter or Christmas really, except for the idea that in our world cold weather is winter and winter is Christmas. So poor Thanksgiving is just like the starting line – or side dish to the bigger picture. This is true on many levels for a person like me. What kind of person you ask? Well first off in Southern California anything that dips under 75 outside is cold to us, when we suddenly can’t wear our flip flops and tank tops it’s winter only for about three months but still. So there we have our first criteria cold. Moving into what makes me so special (and really probably tons of other people) I worked in retail for five years, and before that I worked with children and before that I worked a movie theatre. Why does this matter? In retail the winter starts in august, that last week if you really pay attention. We use to get backpacks and lunch totes in June, no joke, June. So November in the mind of retail, particularly a children’s store, is Christmas. The week of Thanksgiving is the most exhausting week of anyone retailer’s life (usually) and the day of Thanksgiving is the only day you’re going to get off that week. Ok, you all figured that’s what I meant with the retail but why did working with kids and movie theatres matter? How did they impact my whacked out sense of an entire season being about one holiday and not the three that take place in that time period? Working with kids you start doing “holiday” crafts somewhere in the beginning of November and keep doing it until the end of December. I once spent more than 3 days baking and putting together gingerbread houses, so families could decorate them. I made a couple dozen snowmen pancakes with powder sugar for snow. I taught how to make countless Rudolph the red nose reindeer crafts some with candy canes and peppermint patties, some with paper plates and paint. Moving on to the last thing, movie theatres. I worked in one for five years (five seems to be my number), and I worked all five Thanksgivings and Christmas Days for them. But here is like the retail dilemma, not because of the amount of work but because when November starts it’s the start of Oscar Race/ Christmas Holiday Season. The winter holidays (all of them) has just become the idea of Christmas, which is slightly skewed and control by what we consume but you know, at least we’re aware of it?


But this blur was actually going to be about Thanksgiving. It’s the first year in a while where I haven’t been at work until the first few hours of the holiday and back to work before the sun is up on Black Friday. I did still work, because you can’t teach an old dog new tricks at this point, but it wasn’t the same frantic stressful urgent atmosphere. There are a few things that are interesting about Thanksgiving. One it’s a completely American holiday, like actually many of the holidays that are on our calendars but this one everyone who is here seems to embrace. The ideals of Thanksgiving are just genuinely something worth embracing. I read an article about Thanksgiving a few days back. From my reading two things struck me. One I’m upset that my turkey is not going to be as delicious as the Turkeys given to Truman. It has something to do with how our poor turkeys are mass-produced like so many of the things we consume, and apparently the poor things aren’t even dynamically correct. I imagined humans being produced to look like Barbie, top heavy and functionally useless. The second thing was that the author of the article (I didn’t write it down but I’m sure it was from the MSN homepage…) mentioned that if the holiday originated with the Pilgrims splurging as a celebration of thanks during hard times that we should take a page out of their book during our hard time. What a great message to leave a reader with, yeah things are hard now. But at least you’re not looking daunting at starting an entire country, establishing a town, dealing with harsh unknown weather, and having to catch your own turkey. So I ate turkey (even though originally they probably ate duck), and loved my mashed potatoes (even though they didn’t have those originally they apparently still thought they were the devil), and I was just thankful for whatever particular thing could make me smile.



Not to say that I forgot my background completely. Like I said I still worked because you know, that’s just what I’m use to. But more importantly at 10 PM, I went out to shop at the store I use to work for experience the insanity of Black Friday from the other side of the glass. Not going to lie to you all non-retailers, it’s much more fun behind the counter. Granted I suppose that if the store is completely prepared and the employees happy to be there the shoppers can tell and that makes all the difference. I might also be generally overly critical maybe the average shopper doesn’t care if you make their experience enjoyable or if the cashier is enjoying themselves and smiling. It’s doubtful that anyone else that got into the line to purchase his or her items last night actually timed their wait time. But I was programmed this way and I’m hard to impress because on Black Friday I could manage a line of people very quickly, personally I could ring a transaction within 43 seconds of starting (no matter how much stuff you had) and I did it with a smile and seriously had a blast doing it. Not to say that my cashier wasn’t on the ball last night, because she was very sweet and quick and in all fairness most of their cashiers were very new and inexperienced still. So like I said my standards might be to high, but walking into the store last night only an hour after they opened I wasn’t wowed. I didn’t feel the initial shock of the perfection of the set up, or the powerful sense of magic. But maybe things have changed and maybe that’s why I moved on? It’s still sad because believe me, there is no greater sense of immediate accomplishment after pouring everything you’ve got into something. So I miss it, the rush of it and the enjoyment of building a community with your co-workers and with your guests (consumers). So if you’re shopping this weekend, think of the incredible amount of work that went into the entire setting that you’re in from that wheel at the bottom of the rack (we use to clean those) to the speedy checkout. Even though ABC Family has been playing Christmas movies for about a week and shopping centers started playing carols three weeks ago, enjoy the true beginning of the holiday season! Happy shopping!