It's Christmas time....or is it?

Christmas makes people go crazy. It makes people really quite literally go insane.

I have a little insight into why with my three kids but I have to tell you we all fall into this trap.

Take the economy for one. It pretty well sucks right now. We are not sure of what happened,

but we are slow to get out of the slump we are in. Retailers are claiming a “strong November”

and of course the lure of BLACK FRIDAY hangs over our head. News shows and advertising all

sucker us in on what the HOT toy or technology is this year. In case you haven’t heard, Barbie with the camera is very hot....so apparently are Zoobles. Last year it was Zhu Zhu pets. Now back with a vengeance for round two...they battle each other with armor. Who needs a real hamster that stinks up a cage? Toy manufacturers are smart...take it from me, I’ve spent 16 years enjoying the art and talent of merchandising. It’s the goal of the manufacterer make it so we simply can’t live without that second piece, it matches or how about the whole idea of “collecting”? Buy a 7 dollar Zhu Zhu pet and they won’t work without the seven mile trailing hampster trail and battleground and hampster wheel. Even Christmas ornaments are getting insanely expensive at 8.00 a pop when really it took about 20 cents to make in China.

The reason that our economy goes up and down is largely based on how we think. Are we optimistic? Pessimistic? Are we confident about the market? It all based on Dec 25, limited products and the thought that people are confident in the consumer market. Deep discounts have accounted for the strong numbers that retailers claim early success. Once this deep discounting has started, really it will never end. Haven’t you watched how Halloween products come out earlier and earlier? The standard has been set for timing.

I walked into a store that had something cute. It was a Star Wars apron. It’s very popular.

The sales lady said, “We only have a couple left, they are flying out of the store! Super popular and....blah, blah, blah....we could put on on hold for you!” She really had me there for minute.

I imagined making my son’s day by cooking Star Wars pancakes in my Star Wars apron, for my favorite Star Wars fan. But wait....do I even WANT a Star Wars apron? How often will I really use it? In fact in Australia my sister in law has a apron with a push up bra built right inside it...I want that one!

People get persnikity too about what Christmas is, why we have it, what we should do with it, even how we should celebrate it. Merry Christmas or Happy Holidays. Grinch...don’t be a grinch! Don’t forget what happened to the Grinch by the way when he realized Christmas came anyway. He couldn’t stop it. His heart grew three times bigger! The sun will come up and the sun will go down on Christmas day. What if the whole idea of buying anything, or decorating anything simply vanishes. What would happen to the whole economy? Retailers are counting on you for their profit margin, they are counting on you to NOT find the item you want they purposely stock LOW so they don’t have to really get rid of it after Christmas. Then they have to sell it at a big time loss, bad for them good for you....if you only didn’t have that darn Dec 25th deadline.

Have you ever gone post Christmas shopping and saw how deep the discounts get and how junky the stuff gets? If you have any money left this is where the real discounts get started.

Time and economy go hand in hand. What are we counting down to? Is it real? Is the deadline real? If we apply Einstein’s theory of relativity to the whole equation...relative to TIME.

Time with family is a limited thing. Time while our children are small is a limited thing. If you are sick with cancer, time on earth is a limited thing. We try so hard to not get suckered into this deadline of Dec 25 go out and get the Zhu Zhu pet insanity, but why do we often see how our mind goes swimming upstream regardless of our views of Christmas. At the end of our life..we simply will not be able to buy more time and yet that is what is fulling our economy. Knowing we have limited quantity and a finite deadline that only God Himself has set before each one of us.

What we do with our time even how short it is what the true value in God’s economy.