Friday Five: Holiday Season

https://thefridayfive.dreamwidth.org/84177.html

1. Have you seen any holiday commercials yet?

No. Having a big high profile Christmas advert is actually one of the traditions I didn't grow up with but I'm reasonable positive towards. My memories of christmas are of a double size tv times :)

I'm always leery of commercial-company focused traditions, because it's something it's possible for cynical companies to buy goodwill for, but there *are* many instances of it done well.

But I rarely watch any commercials any more. At some point I started muting tv adverts and felt a lot better for it, and now I almost never watch live broadcast tv at all. And online, I see lots of adverts, but almost always ones that mean nothing to me and I click through after four seconds as soon as I can.

2. Will you or have you ever participated in Black Friday?

If there happens to be a good deal, then I wouldn't refuse to buy something on principle, but probably not.

UK doesn't celebrate US thanksgiving, so black friday doesn't have a reason to exist on that particular day, and I'm rather annoyed that stores have started to try to advertise it into existence anyway. I mean, if you need the discount to buy christmas presents, then so much the better, but I can't help but think that stores are doing this for THEIR benefit which probably means the offers are deceptive :(

I'm also resentful that most US companies give so little holiday that people need to devote a day to shopping. I mean, we have plenty of problems of people being exploitatively employed, but more like gig economy jobs where your employment is constantly uncertain, and the problem is more "random times off you don't want and aren't paid for" not "no time off".

And, you know, stores that trick people into trampling each other to death are the exception, but it doesn't endear a holiday tradition to me :(

ETA: And the name is just not a good sign. Apart from the shopping day, there's a whole bunch of massacres and economic crashes all called "black friday".

OK, that was all very depressing. If it weren't for all, that would I be likely to participate?

Not very. I do enjoy shopping, for myself or for presents for others, a bit, but it's never been something I'm massively engaged in. More like, I need to do it and I'm pleased it went well, but with a few exceptions (maybe books?) I'm not *excited* by it. Even if I'm buying something I actively want or know someone else will love, I'm not really excited by the process of shopping, of choosing, of going to a place, etc, although I don't hate it either, and am happy to do it occasionally. In practice, I figure out what I want to buy and then find it online or by going somewhere direct, looking around for something is the exception more than the rule.

3. Do you love or despise holiday leftovers?

It's not been a really big thing, but usually enjoy if they were something we enjoyed the first time -- I LOVE roast potatoes, and once we ended up cooking them for xmas, boxing day, and a couple of days after that. The desire for variety in food has only slowly been awaking in me in my thirties, before that, I was happy to find one thing I like and eat it every day for ages.

If it's something no-one really likes but needed to be used up, then no, but there usually wasn't very much of that. If you don't have a turkey or similar (most of my immediate/extended family are vegetarian), the food doesn't really have an "original mode" and a separate "leftover mode", it's just "the same food, but again" :)

OK, that was longer than I thought, TBC.

Friday Five: Holiday Seson, part II

4. Have you seen any (non-commercial, i.e. store) holiday lights yet?

I'm not sure, I don't go into the town centre very much. But I do like holiday lights, especially ones not tied specifically to christmas like snowflakes strung across town streets, and trees with subtle white lights in, and they're one tradition which I originally associated with Christmas I'd be happy to see embraced as a general "all winter" tradition.

5. Have you been good to Santa’s way of thinking?

Hoo, boy, and for question five we get the nature of good! :)

Um, I try to do good? But I never feel like I do enough whether I do or not. I always feel like other people are a lot more effective! But every so often someone points out that something I'd trained myself to do habitually had been really good even though I glossed it over to myself. So I don't know.

I think tradition has a "good list" and a "bad list". But all the stories about someone being on the wrong list seem to involve doing a bad thing, not doing insufficient good things. I don't even know if they cancel out, or what. It's very ethical philosophical...

It also raises the question of different stereotypes about good. My family never really talked about being good at all, for which I think them. I was just naturally very obliging, if I understood what someone wanted, so supernatural reinforcement was probably overkill. But if you do, the stereotype of "good for santa" is one very much of dutiful *obedience*, of doing things on time, of doing tasks you were assigned, of not causing trouble, not of dutiful *action*, of doing something decisive and unexpectedly nice for someone, etc.

I think there's a lot to be said for habitual, boring goodness. Think "driving safely". But I have actually been trying to cultivate more initiative and less conformity. More standing-up-for-what's-right-and-damn-what-people-think. I'm not sure if that's very santa friendly. Although I suppose C S Lewis thought it was. And my friends with children probably know better, I should ask them.

All that was summed up by a comic I sometimes think about (even if I don't necessarily agree): https://pclips-archives.erfworld.com/1/177

Two of Santa's reindeer are talking.

A: How old are children when they figure out that the naughty and nice list are a scam? I mean, they say you'll be rewarded if you're good.
A: But Santa always comes anyway and the only thing that determines how much Santa brings you is -- for some reason -- how rich your parents are.
B: They never figure it out. It gradually evolves into the protest work ethic.