Ten minutes to write. Less time to read.

This morning I heard on the radio that Macy’s Department Store is going to be open for forty-eight hours straight the weekend just before Christmas.

We’ve already acquiesced to seeing Christmas decorations at the end of September, holiday catalogs arriving mid-October, and robo-calls for magazine subscriptions as gifts in November. Then there’s Black Friday, Small Business Saturday, and Cyber Monday. It seems to be all about buy, buy, buy.

Could it be we’re missing the point? I understand that the American economy needs these boosts. At the same time, I believe that Christmas is really a religious day when Christians celebrate the birth of Jesus Christ. And, honestly, I’m not a particularly devout Christian. Yet, I am dismayed with the all-out commercialism. The marketing. The endless promotions. The gimme, gimme, gimme.

So when Macy’s says it will be open forty-eight hours straight, I am dismayed. It makes the holiday be more about buying than celebrating, more about dollars spent than thought put into being together, more about accumulating than sharing. Does anybody else feel this way?