Thanks!

I let Thanksgiving get by without writing a word.

Oh, I have many things to be thankful for, so that's not why I was neglecting my journal entry. I really was conflicted this year. I'm trying to keep on the positive side and to write about up-lifting things. Then, I get on a rant and off I go spewing negativity into cyberspace.

It's far too easy to write about all we have to be grateful about on Thanksgiving. But, this year I was painfully aware of the commercially contrived nature of it all. Why? There were Christmas trees in Home Depot before Halloween! Give me a break!

I'm tired of being programmed to eat turkey on the fourth Thursday of November, to do all my holiday shopping on Black Friday, and to mail my cards and gifts by December X to guarantee their arrival in time for the holidays.

Sheesh! Don't people see what a plastic market-driven bunch of hype all this is. Even in this down economy, hordes of frantic shoppers were clogging the highways and byways this past weekend to catch that extra special bargin. All this hyper-drive shopping rush actually cost a Walmart employee his life on Friday. Yes, the crowd trampled him to death when the doors opened in the wee hours of the morning on Black Friday. OMG! No toy or electronic piece of crap is worth a human life!

So, I held off writing this piece because it's not a happy, joyful interspective journey reflecting all the goodness of the past, present and future. Nope. I am feeling quite sick -- of leftovers and the rush to get Christmas over with -- and it's only December 1.