Debbie Downer Does Dallas (for Xmas)

Exactly.

Annually, folks just like you and I spend countless hours, usually starting in early October, lamenting over the impending doom that I like to call "The Holidaze Season." 

This looks embarrassing on your kid.

Body parts begin to get puffy (because Texans can't handle moving anything if below 40 degrees outside), Christmas music blares on strip mall speakers before the little ones can even begin to decide between which commercially beaten-to-death, dried up and ugly, plastic super hero costume they need Mom and Dad to buy for $30, and every end-cap at the grocery store plugs some sort of hideous list special:

Personally, Id rather eat this.

"Buy (this hydrogenated product made out of plastic and sugar) to go on top of (this other thing that starts with a stick of butter, and ends with a lifetime of sorrow-filled eating habits) and we'll give you a free can of fried, dry onions to go on top of the lard-laden dish that's no longer a vegetable!" Here are some of my favorite one-off alternatives to the above suggested sludge, made out of real and fresh ingredients:

• Lightly blanched kale with salt n' pepa.
• Mashed sweet potatoes made with Almond Milk and Earth Balance.
• German Pancakes made with mostly egg whites and agave nectar, topped with fresh berries and warm, natural maple syrup.
• Turkey Tortilla soup with blue corn chips, Hatch green chiles, and black beans.
• A tall glass of Firemans 4. Always fresh. Should always flow. Period.

Then begins the obligatory "savings plan" for obligatory gift-giving and the ideal that "Black Friday" contains some sort of actual, magic coupon that actually saves you tens of percents off.  It does! And it can be great, perhaps if and only if you've always wanted that coveted, singular item that's usually expensive, but at 4 a.m. it lies on the shelves of the Big Blue or Red Box for half off, but the name of the game is Impulse Overspending.  Guess what? This just in:

Does this even need a caption?

No one really "saves" a dime on Black Friday.  

Shoppers pour every last cent of their hourly wage checks and unemployment monies into foreign-made plastic, even on plastic credit they'll never payoff, largely at discount or bargain stores filled to the brim with stuff. Just stuff. Full of stuff.  Stuff the kids grow out of and won't appreciate anyway.  Stuff that one woman said to another woman,"Bitch, get out' my way, it's fuckin'   CHRIMMAS!" as she plowed her down while waddling through the doors of a 24-hour retailer, that actually attempts to employ a geriatric door greeter for minimum wage.  Stuff out of an obligatory, utterly Americanized tradition that could stand to change its tone--not the Americanization of Christmas itself, but the tone of voice and malignant actions committed by holidazed shoppers on shit-covered shopping sprees.

Why not make the film selection below required viewing for anyone who remains bull-headed in regards to their Holidaze habits.  All are available on Netflix:  

• Maxed Out
• Wal-Mart: The High Cost of Low Price
• A State of Mind (for perspective on what life is like on another planet from yours).
• And coming soon (featuring several friends and neighbors from Austin) Handmade Nation
• Thirst (perhaps stop watching closeted, hipster, Mormon propaganda vampire films).

Rory Skagen of Blue Genie makes art.

There are folks out there who have no clue as to how much DIY, American-made, beautiful artisan crafts and gifts line their downtowns, and their strips.  No clue that healthy groceries shouldn't be a luxury item.  No clue that the point of the spirit of "this time of year" gets lost in the point that we should behave in a giving, loving regard at ALL times of the year in the first place. Giving a friend the gift of knowledge about things like The Blue Genie Art Bazaar, Farmer's Markets, perhaps even Go Local cards, and even daily deal site getaway bargains, yields more possible joy and local economical stimulus than a bag full of plastic, slave-labored, major brand embarrassments from a notoriously hideous, monopolizing and abusive retailer.  Spend on one meaningful, locally-carried toy or game, over ten of them that clutter the house and the pocketbook with debts.

Have a look sometime.

Cut down.  Trim the fat.  Literally, get moving.  Make the gift of free fitness with your family, like talking a walk with your Dad.  My father, who's entering the fledgling stage of his golden years and was just asked to retire before he was good and ready to do so, has recently been diagnosed with a particularly upsetting, yet manageable disease:  Parkinson's.  Instead of crumbling inside while we interface during those infrequent times we get to actually share the same space, I've decided to educate myself and my other family members about life after diagnosis.  I am going to cherish these moments, starting yesterday.

Walk and talk. It's free.  Try this instead of that cramped car ride to that chain restaurant, where you can't have that conversation, because your jowels are stuck together from all of the hidden mal-nutrition. Eat a delicious piece of fine chocolate, or a truffle made from a local chocolatier, and not a bag of M&M's.  Get your pre-teen hipster a book on handmade, DIY crafts, or even a membership to an affordable gym like Planet Fitness, not a "Team Edward" shirt, so that she may be able to actually make the team when tryouts come around.  Go inward, not Edward.  Spending time with people you love, spending money on quality items over quantity crap,  makes more of an imprint to the soul and less of one in the wallet, in the long run.