Black Friday 2019

My personal challenge, maybe my contribution, has been to make Thanksgiving dinner, followed by shabbos dinner, followed by my wife's birthday, with Hanukkah tossed to the calendar mix some years, though not this year.

Holiday shopping challenged me as well, thinking about the recipient as an individual with , things they like to do, teams they root for, and their elements of heritage, all of which can be translated to small gifts.

Circumstances change over the years, both for me and for the normal function of the world.  The gift list is much smaller, challenge of staying in budget much higher.  Stores are now open Sundays, a novelty in Boston when I first started this.  I no longer have to go to work on usual workdays and I am now rather attentive to not shopping on shabbos, now that there are ample other opportunities, though my regard for other Jewish elements may have waned.  And my dinners have become more grand, served at my house, leaving me with quite a lot of dishes to do. 

While we have on-line access to purchasing, it does not pay for items under $10.  For birthday gifts of larger cost that need transport, it's the way to go, for shipping on my own, I keep the gift selections light. 

Black Friday has itself changed.  Stores now open in the evening on Thanksgiving.  They used to open at 4-5 AM the following day, with steep discounts.   The ads would come in a large newspaper edition, and still do.  I would target one or two items, either for myself or for my wife's birthday gift, set out before dawn for Value City, of blessed memory, make a bee line for what I want to get, pay for it and be on my way before rosy-fingered dawn came over the parking lot.  No reason to do that now.  I don't need anything, don't particularly want anything, and wife's birthday gift is better expressed as an experience over a product.  The retailers have figured this out.  Stores open either at 6 o7 AM, the early bird discounts leave me unimpressed.   I wash dishes instead.

Hanukkah Gifts

It has always been my desire to complete gift buying before the Christmas rush.  After marrying into my family, I quickly adopted my in-law's tradition of one small gift for each member of the household with each Hanukkah candle and a single gift, also of relatively nominal value. for each first degree relative.  That left me with a short list, father, later step-mother, two siblings and I absorbed an edible for my wife's aunt.  As a newlywed, the only one living a distance from home turf, I would putter around Harvard Square and downtown Boston, for just the right book or kitchen gadget from the small stores that lined either Massachusetts Avenue in Cambridge or the very large but suitable Woolworth's, z"l where I could always count on something with my wife's first name.  My last year, Massachusetts, or at least Boston, allowed the stores to stay open on Sundays between Thanksgiving and Christmas, but the hospital of my residency allowed all employees, including the residents to designate a floating holiday as "Christmas Shopping Day." which all of did.  That meant I could not beat Black Friday and Hanukkah usually falls a couple of weeks before Christmas leaving some scramble.  Yet even though I had only a few individuals, it may have been my best time during the year to think about multiple people and diverse interests at the same time.  Birthday's seemed a little easier, one person at a time and a more liberal budget.  Later some relocation on my part and my father's part, a couple of children, then attrition of the list which is now my own household and far-off offspring.  Fewer people to tease out interests and personalities but the principles have endured.  I could shop on-line but not at that budget.  The small stores, even along Harvard Square, have given way to mega-chains that give a huge variety and a favorable price, but it is not as easy to find something that shouts that's the essence of my son or daughter. 

Still, I reached my quota, eight for wife, four for each child, before Thanksgiving this year, hastened slightly by wanting my daughter to carry her gifts across the country when she visits us.  Restrained by budget as always, but also now restrained by the TSA to avoid anything sharp or liquid. 

Black Friday and beyond will soon arrive, Hanukkah itself ten days or so later.  Gift wrapping has its own challenge, as does shipping, but even there, firms like Staples or MailBoxes Etc have made that easy enough.  Concentrate on being festive.