Holiday season ... Prepare for war!

Now that Thanksgiving is done and we've all seen and shared love with our family and friends, the winter warfare season is upon us. From now until Christmas day, people of all ages will battle for places in long lines, get frustrated with frazzled customer service representatives and spend unnecessary amounts of hard-earned money on frivolous and outlandish manifestations of material possession. \nChristmas shopping time is here and all of the consumer violence that comes with it.\nFrom the day after Thanksgiving to the day before Christmas, the doors to your local mall will become gates to a hell decked in candy stripes, midgets in elf costumes and crying babies complaining that the man in the Santa suit isn't real. Mothers will roll in the aisles, scratching each other's eyes out over the last Harry Potter game. Fathers will channel the spirit of Mike Tyson and fight over the last Barbie car in the store or make underhanded deals with the storeroom workers to get a guaranteed piece of the video game selection. To make things worse, all of the regular store employees will schedule their breaks at the same time, leaving half-hour blocks of time when the seasonal employees will have to wear riot gear to keep the peace. At school, little children will argue over who will get the coolest gifts, whose house Santa will visit first and whether Grandmother will give toys or socks this year. During the pre-Christmas rush, no one is safe.\nIt's no wonder that retailers look forward to pre-Christmas rush with great anticipation; it has been reported that they do over 25 percent of their annual business during this short period of frantic consumerism. So retailers play up the event as much as possible and have sales at odd hours of the day. I recently saw one circular that advertised a "doorbuster" sale that began at 5 a.m. I know people that think a 10 a.m. class is too early to attend regularly. There have to be better things to do with one's holiday season than get up at 5 a.m. to spend money on things that will be broken or returned anyway. \nSomewhere in the timeline of American capitalism, Christmas became the most abused marketing tool of all and the ad agencies and retailers of today reap the benefits of both the American consumer spirit and the drive to please your friends and family and out-do everyone else.\nI like getting stuff too, but I know there are more important things to worry about in this life. \nDo something creative for Christmas this year and fight the consumer urge. Make something by hand for someone on your list. A handmade card, ornament or anything else the imagination can come up with will speak volumes to the person you give it to. If actions speak louder than words, what better gift could be given than a product finished by your own hands? Time and effort are gifts that will be remembered and appreciated many more times than a sweater or an action figure. And no one is too young to give a handmade gift. Think about it like this: Everything we buy is made by someone else that we don't know and could care less about how we feel or what we will do with it. When you make something by hand for someone, they then know that they're worth more than money. Besides, if you make something, you might discover a talent you never knew you had. So for this year's pre-Christmas rush, don't just spend money for the holidays, spend some time for, and with people. The return for those things is always worth more than the cost.