I have to plan ahead.
I have to make lists and I have to plot ideas. I need to know the best way to go.
I will avoid Black Friday the way survivors in a post-apocalyptic wasteland will avoid zombies. Because I’ve done Black Friday before, and sometimes the difference between people intent on the best deal on a flat-screen television and the shambling masses looking to feast on the brains of the living is negligible.
I do what I can on this day of all days to avoid buying so much as a tank of gas or a stick of gum because I have seen a grandma and a pregnant mom with a stroller do everything short of go after each other with broken beer bottles over a parking space.
Sure, we’ve all seen the videos of trampling hordes invading a store to get a discount laptop. But this was a parking space to get to that mass hysteria provoking no-rules, cage-fight aggression between women who might have shared a laugh in the checkout on any other day. I just don’t have that in me.
I will spend all day slow-cooking a turkey carcass to make delicious soup that I will sip between hauling boxes of Christmas decorations up from the laundry room.
I will hold the blown-glass teardrop ornament that my husband bought on our honeymoon and smile remembering when he first hung it on the tree and cry thinking about how he isn’t here to hang it again.
I will wrap the presents my son would have probably located if he ever cleaned the garage like I asked. I didn’t get them on super-sensational Black Friday low-low-LOW! prices but I did acquire them here and there on different sales for months. No crowds required.
I will watch Hallmark Christmas movies like I am collecting a paycheck.
I will eat pie. Oh yes, there will be pie.
At the end of the day, I will have transitioned from Thanksgiving to Christmas without waiting in line or risking injury in a fight to the death for a PlayStation game. I won’t have to confess my retail crimes to a police detective or a priest.
I don’t reject the commercial aspects of Christmas. Not at all. Stick a bow or a Santa hat on just about anything and I will cheerfully fork over my cash.
What I do reject is the hostility. I can’t start out the Christmas season by declaring war over an artificial tree with faceted LED lights and a remote control.
I need my season of peace to start out peacefully, and I pray that will carry through to Christmas Day.
But if you opt to go into battle, good luck to you. And beware of grandmas looking for a good parking place.
