Slightly-Less-Black Saturday!

Yesterday was "Black Friday", the day after Thanksgiving that is traditionally the busiest retail shopping day of the year...The day when we waddle around the malls and parking lots of America, working off some of that cornbread stuffing and sweet potato pie while we add a few hundred, or thousand, more dollars to our credit card balances...

I stayed home and worked on next month's EVERYTHINGATHON! , although I did go to the grocery store for coffee and catfood in the evening...It was about 7pm, and there were more employees standing around than actual customers, and COPP'S is a huge grocery store...I checked myself out...The four employees standing around bullshitting at the checkout seemed like they were having a good time, and who am I to mess with that...

Anyways, the holiday season is now officially upon us, nevermind that Madison's oldie's station WOLX, has been playing Christmas music since Halloween.

As I've no doubt written here before, I don't particularly enjoy this time of year, simply because my mom died on Christmas Eve 1987. Now, 21 years have passed, and I've certainly made my peace with her passing, but that does not mean I take any great joy in this season.

Well, that's not exactly true.

I do enjoy those pictures of children screaming and crying on Santa's lap...And I think pictures of naked Santa are funny...Likewise, pictures of Santa in sexually compromising positions are awfully titillating to me...So are pictures of large groups of Santas doing un-Santa-like activities, like downhill skiing or dancing the Frug...I like the Toys For Tots campaign, and always stick a couple of things into the box at work every year...I look forward to rewatching SCTV's various Christmas specials every December...I like year-end best-of lists...I like baked ham...I like giving and the idea of giving...And while I no longer consider myself a Christian, I do believe the historical Jesus Christ was probably a pretty cool dude, or at the very least a damn fine showman...Either way, a celebration of his birth is alright with me...I just wish it didn't have to last 1-2 months of the year...

Hotcha! Hank