1. "Re-gifting" is an end stage activity of a consumer society. You can still shop till you drop, even though every closet in your house is stuffed to overflowing. It's OK because you don't have to keep anything. You can wrap it nicely and give it away, thereby creating some room for the possibility of more shopping. Wow.
I'm fascinated by shows like Clean House in which the people are so attached to their stuff, and to shopping and buying, that they literally don't have any room left in their homes. The Clean House team comes in, talks them into selling stuff at a yard sale, then fixes up their houses. It's on the Style channel. Highly recommended to students of popular culture as well as those interested in the dirty underbelly of this empire's fall from grace. Right now Clean House is looking for the "messiest home in America." Can you imagine?
All empires end the same way - with a bloated population stuffed to the gills, apathetic, numb, mostly drunk or drugged in some way or another. It was just like this in Rome, too. C'est la vie.2. A friend asks, Why does Christmas have to be a month long?
I think it used to be shorter. I had one boyfriend during the early 1980's who had nerves of steel. He never even started shopping before Christmas Eve. He loved it. He would go to some big mall, shop all day among the mobs of angry "last minute" shoppers, then spend the evening wrapping presents and decorating the tree. I bet he doesn't do it anymore. This year certain American stores opened at 4:00 a.m. the day after Thanksgiving. Four in the morning? That's just wrong. Crazy.
3. Other than a couple of seasonally related trains of thought, I'm below the radar for the duration (till solstice) apparently. OK. Why not?
7 comments:
I'm glad Maggie and Rex have reappeared after you deleted them from the last post. It was after that canine fiasco that we had the series of every imaginable rodent before we once again settle back into dogs in the form of the beloved black lab Dylan. May he rest in peace. He would have been 14 on December 30.
It is strange how the season gets earlier and earlier. I went through some holiday frustration of my own this week which I will write about, maybe tomorrow. This whole thing has gotten out of hand!
I too am fascinated by clutter-control shows and blogs. The way people's material lives spin out of control is so interesting. (I really think I need to be a professional organizer. I get such a charge out of it!) And I love the way you link it to end-of-empire -- I think you're so right.
I find myself storing boxes of stuff in the garage for some future yard sale, getting frustrated, as I like the garage clean and neat--- so some goes out on the curb and the rest goes to the thrift shop.
I have to say, a lot of the stuff ...Christmas gifts people give us -- knick knacks, kitchen gadgets, another wine rack... sigh.
I'm going to try and get Dennis to wear a Santa Hat.
C'mon Dennis! All of us have a Santa hat tucked away somewhere in a box in the garage. I even have one, and I'm not in any way an American pack rat!
i see purple you and purple jake!
:o)
YES! Most people don't notice Jake but he's there - of course. Very cool, Lettuce. What an eye you have!
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