When the Whos Down in Whoville Attack! ~ A blog of holiday re-evaluation for all.

<p>It seems, from the latest news reports, that some of the Whos down in Whoville have seriously lost their pea-pickin&#39; minds.</p> <p>Seriously ya&#39;ll. What is up with people this holiday season? Some blue-vested employee got trampled in Wallyworld. I&#39;m guessing the unions are now heatedly discussing pushing for holiday hazard pay...don&#39;t ya think? What exactly was so valuable that people felt the need to plant their size nines on the body of Mr. Hello and Welcome to Walmart in their quest to get to the items first? Was it a lung? Perhaps a kidney? Or was it a freaking Playstation? It surely wasn&#39;t a book on manners and polite behavior. I&#39;m just guessing here. </p> <p>Then it came across my screen that two women got in a fist fight at a Toys-R-Us, which then became a gunfight between their respective baby-daddies. WHO brings a gun to Toys-R-Us? And just what version of Elmo is worth risking your own and other people&#39;s lives? And oh...my...gawd! Both couples had children with them when they decided to go all Bonnie and Clyde!</p> <p>And the crazy just keeps on coming.</p> <p>During the annual Turkey Trot 10K race...a &quot;minister&quot; marched his silly ass into the pack of runners and began trying to preach at them...while they were running! When the runners didn&#39;t stop to listen and stare at him in wonder...he began attempting to beat them with a big ole&#39; bible! NO lie! You can&#39;t make this stuff up. What the heck was this guy there to &quot;testify&quot; about? The sins of running shorts? </p> <p>And the final straw that inspired me to dash out this bloggy ? A guy dressed as Santa is responsible for a rash of store robberies. How many different kinds of wrong is THAT? So now shop keepers in the area are actually in fear of Santa Claus.</p> <p>Ya&#39;ll...that is seriously (pardon my French) f--- ed Up!</p> <p>What has happened to this country? Suddenly the most important thing in people&#39;s lives is to have freaking candy-colored washers and dryers that cost more than a month&#39;s mortgage payment. They lose sleep over not having the most advanced cell phone or Blackberry. People who barely can get out of bed to get to work on time every day drag themselves out of bed at three in the morning to stand in front of department stores that open at four A.M. WHO GOES SHOPPING AT 4 A.M.?</p> <p>Crazy people with seriously jacked up value systems. THAT&#39;s who!</p> <p>And I know some of you are going &quot;Well, if I didn&#39;t go to those sales I woudn&#39;t be able to afford what little Johnny wants for Xmas!&quot; Well honey...maybe little Johnny needs to learn to appreciate what you can afford. We&#39;re teaching our kids that having the most and &quot;best&quot; stuff defines who a person is. WRONG ya&#39;ll. SO very, very wrong.</p> <p>Long ago I stopped even going in the malls during the holidays after seeing a woman, who had one hand on a stroller that contained two sleeping babies,&nbsp;punch another woman in the face in an attempt to get her hands on a Tickle Me Elmo. THAT was not a picture postcard ho-ho-ho-holiday moment for me. Know what I mean?</p> <p>In my world, and as I was taught by my parents, the holidays are about appreciating family, friends and how fortunate we are to have eachother. It is about celebrating the beauty of the season, the music, having a meal where everyone sits down together for a change and the world slows down for just a bit so we can just look around and be happy. Some years we had a lot, some years we had very little. And honestly? I don&#39;t remember but maybe one or two of the gifts. What I do remember about each and every holiday is who was there, what we all laughed about and how pretty everything looked...even if it was just one string of lights hung on a tiny&nbsp;apartment balcony.</p> <p>Over the past years I have heard time and time again, &quot;I need to get one more present for so-and-so because I have three for whatshername and only two for so-and-so&quot;. When did a holiday become some sort of tacky game show challenge? I&#39;ve heard people grumbling that they have to go shopping and how little time they have, and how they HATE buying all this stuff. They rush to the malls and grab up whatever crosses their path, with little or no thought going into for whom they are buying the gift. Their main concern seems to be that they will give (or get) less STUFF than the next person. And then after the holiday they stress even more because they have put themselves in debt via their whirlwind of shopping for things that they hardly looked at before snatching them up off a display rack.</p> <p>Santa robbers? Guns in Toys-R-Us? Playstation stampedes?</p> <p>Really ya&#39;ll?</p> <p>So this year The Hubster and I made a very daring (and it appears confusing) move. We notified all our gift exchanging relatives that we would be buying one gift per person this year and, that everyone could join us&nbsp;in this new tradition or not. No hard feelings either way.&nbsp;Not only due to the sagging economy...but because we felt all the joy and wonder of the holiday slipping away. Our announcement was met with puzzled stares and emails asking that we please explain. It seemed pretty simple to us. Someone actually said &quot;You&#39;re a grown-up now. That &quot;holiday feeling&quot; is meant for kids. As adults it is up to us to do all this stuff we hate to make sure kids have a happy Christmas.&quot; I SO beg to differ.</p> <p>But honestly...am I wrong? Or, am I just an a---- ? (sorry...movie quote moment. Props to anyone who get&#39;s the reference.) We&#39;re sticking to our guns (no Toys-R-Us pun intended). We had a ball decorating the house, we&#39;ve already watched National Lampoon&#39;s Christmas Vacation AND Die Hard (is too a holiday movie!) and have totally danced in the driveway to Brian Setzer&#39;s holiday CD. We have a trip to St. Augustine planned...not to shop, but to enjoy the holiday decorations and crisp seaside air. Our shopping list is short, sweet and stress free. Our friends (the family we chose) have all agreed that the crazy has gotten out of hand for them as well, and that we will not exchange gifts...but instead all get together for a game night and junk food feast as our gift to one another. As, honestly, we do stuff for eachother all year long. We don&#39;t need one day to cram all that love into and then forget about it the rest of the year. Ya&#39; feel me? This choice has brought back the holiday for us and we are full scale jingly full of joy like nobody&#39;s business.</p> <p>So...here&#39;s what I&#39;m suggesting; when you head out the door...teeth clenched and credit limit straining at the seams...take a moment to think what YOU want your holiday to be about. Forget about keeping up with The Jones&#39;s. If you couldn&#39;t afford it all year...why now? When is the last time you caught yourself humming &quot;Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas&quot;? When is the last time you read &quot;The Night Before Christmas&quot; out loud to your kids?</p> <p>Take a moment people. This holiday is special (in many different ways for many different people)...and commercialism and greed are threatening to ruin it for us all. Everyone is all gung-ho on the &quot;green&quot; movement, right? Well, I&#39;m encouraging one and all to get on board the &quot;red &amp; green&quot; movement...and take the holiday back! Make some move this year to preserve holiday joy and childlike wonder in your part of the world.</p> <p>And THAT? Is my get your mental-healthy, reel in the crazy, spread some joy...not gunfire...kind of holiday bloggy for you!</p> <p>Ding Dang Ya&#39;ll! Get your jingle on!</p>