All the upside-down christmas trees, retarded bickering about whether a company should have “Merry Christmas” all over the place or “Happy Holidays”, and five a.m. Friday shopping for the first forty people lucky enough to not get trampled by a jealous crowed has made even my very catholic mother not want to participate in christmas.

Storming the shopping malls

Saturday, November 26, 2005

By Erik Lacitis

Seattle Times staff reporter

The report from the day after Thanksgiving, one of the busiest shopping days of the year:
Huge crowds, sometimes torrential rain, jammed parking lots and police being called to a few Wal-Marts — two for disagreements that arose among shoppers over bargain-priced laptops, the other for a bomb threat that forced an evacuation but nothing more…

…At the Wal-Mart stores in Renton and Puyallup, what consumers wanted was a laptop — so much so that it led to pushing and shoving and additional police officers being called in to assist off-duty officers providing security.

Wal-Mart had launched its holiday campaign the day after Halloween, calling it the company’s “earliest and most aggressive” holiday launch. But in Renton, some customers became aggressive and overwhelmed the electronics department within an hour of the store’s 5 a.m. opening. The draw: HP Pavilion laptops, 40 of them selling for $378 each.

At the South Hill Wal-Mart in Puyallup, a crowd of hundreds was getting edgy by 4:45 a.m. When the doors opened 15 minutes later, shoppers converged on a pile of $378 laptops. People screamed, one witness said.

People at the back of the line pushed forward and two women were knocked down, said Lorri Ericson, a Puyallup Police spokeswoman. Police responded and will send their report to detectives, she said, but the incident wasn’t captured on store security cameras. No serious injuries were reported, she said.

Christi Gallagher, a national Wal-Mart spokeswoman, said the most excitement was caused by two people shouting at each other. She said, “From time to time, our customers get very excited about the prices we’re offering.”

At the Wal-Mart in Lynnwood, there was a noontime bomb threat, and the store was evacuated. The Snohomish County Sheriff’s Office and the State Patrol investigated but found nothing, and the store eventually reopened.

I don’t care whether it’s “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays”. I celebrate opening gifts that I most often wouldn’t get for myself followed by the annual let’s get drunk day. Two separate holidays, so if I’m not going to see someone until the end of it all it’s, “Happy Holidays”. You see there are TWO of them and so it’s plural. “Happy Holiday’s” was never an argument of inclusiveness in the past. When I was a kid people seemed to know about pluralizing words. If I want to wish just one happy holiday then it’s “Merry Christmas” because those of us that aren’t in the 80% are painfully aware of it. As for the psychotic shopping sprees…I do most of my shopping online.

My mother’s email rant to me:

The big fuss about being a Christian celebration or not is making me sick and feel worse about thinking that is nothing but about money, Spend money buy presents. Respect others people’s beliefs. Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays. Someone should say lets put an end to all nonsense shopping. Put an end to this season. Even in the comercials now they talk about regifting, and say that it is acceptable in some talk shows. They sugest to keep track of who gives us what so we do not return it to the same person next season.

Bye, bye, holidays for me.

Related posts: