Advice from a small town girl

Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat . . .

And so am I.

It’s odd. Not that I’m gaining weight during what has, relatively recently, become a season of excess. Excess blessed by retailers, Wall Street, the government, the media, and perhaps most of all –China.

Now, I frequently say that “everything to excess” is my personal motto. I’ve lived in that mode for a long time, regardless of employment or income. But always lingering in the corner of my mind is that little Puritan (I’m sure I’ve mentioned her before) looking at me with that face. You know the one. It’s the same face your mother wore the first time you were intentionally bad.

Yeah, that one.

I’ve become adept, over the years, at ignoring that face, regardless of who(m?) it resembled. Because deep inside, in the opposite corner of my mind, is the tiny un-Puritan, jumping up and down with glee at the opportunities spread before me.

I have no idea how much my parents spent on us each Christmas. I’m sure it seemed excessive to them, not so much to us.

I think they were probably pretty careful to even things out so that each of us had the same number of packages to open, so that no one felt unloved. It didn’t always work.

I do remember that our Christmas stockings usually contained a couple of smallish toys, nuts and ribbon candy and a tangerine. My dad was a magician at finding weird little gadgets that would keeps us occupied for hours. Needless to say, in the 1960s they didn’t cost much.

I was amazed the other day when the talking heads on the TV screen told me that the average American spent $784 dollars on Christmas.

“That can’t be true,” I said to myself.

Then I mentioned my disbelief to someone here in town, who said they thought the average was low. She said they spent over $200 just on stocking stuffers.

Oh, my goodness.

I may be going out on a limb here when I say, “That’s WAY too much!”

Personally, I think it’s too much even if you have a lot of money. If you don’t, it’s not just too much, it’s not very smart.

Why do we feel that we need to spend so much? Is is because the TV is telling us to? Is it because our children will not love us if we don’t? Is it because it makes us feel prosperous, never mind that we won’t in January? Are we making up for something we did or didn’t do earlier in the year?

Several years ago, I purchased a book called “Unplug the Christmas Machine,” by Jo Robinson and Jean Coppock Staeheli. It’s a great book, full of no-nonsense advice on how to manage the season, instead of letting it manage you.

Now, of course, I can’t find it.

So I’m rendering some of my own advice here, in place of the real experts.

Let’s see . . . how about “just say no?” No? Well, then, what about, “Nothing tastes as good as thin feels?” Not really appropriate, although there’s a lot to pay attention to there.

“A penny saved is a penny earned” just makes us sound like we’re not allowed to have any fun at all.

Perhaps “penny wise, pound foolish” best describes us. But how to turn it around?

There are a lot of proverbs about money, possessions and happiness. And, as usual, the advice ranges from one end of the spectrum to the other.

My best, and least-heeded advice? Turn off the TV.

When she was three, my now nineteen-year-old niece was sitting cross-legged in front of the TV in my Portland house. Virtually every time there was a commercial break in the cartoons (about every minute and a half, it seemed), she would say, very firmly, “I NEED that!”

It seemed funny at the time.

Now I’m just scared.

Because that’s us. Maybe not all of us, but enough of us to be serious about. We are the three-year-olds saying “I NEED that,” when anyone over the age of four-and-a-half would know better.