{"id":10618,"date":"2011-12-26T13:37:13","date_gmt":"2011-12-26T00:37:13","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=10618"},"modified":"2011-12-26T13:37:13","modified_gmt":"2011-12-26T00:37:13","slug":"boxing-day-why-i-never-do-the-big-sales","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2011\/12\/26\/boxing-day-why-i-never-do-the-big-sales\/","title":{"rendered":"Boxing Day—& Why I Never Do The Big Sales"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Da Big Bird!<\/p><\/div>\n

Christmas Day here turned out to be a really nice day, brightly sunny but not too hot, and with a considerable reduction of earthshaking activity, ie from 46 and 45 respectively on the previous two days, down to ‘only’ 29 on the 25th. Needless to say, it was very nice to be able to focus on family and friends in a positive way and duly observe all the usual rituals of phone calls, visits, and presents, food and drink. \ud83d\ude09<\/p>\n

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The cake: chocolate, almond & orange<\/p><\/div>\n

Today is very much the same weather-wise, and with only 8 quakes recorded so far; as always we are hoping—somewhat against the odds, it has to be said, but hope does spring eternal—that the ‘reducing’ trend will continue.<\/p>\n

Speaking of trends, Boxing Day has become the day of big sales in the retail sector, but that is a trend I have never wanted to participate in.<\/p>\n

Here’s why—Boxing Day is a public<\/em> holiday. That means it’s meant to be a holiday for everyone<\/em>—a time when we can relax with family and friends after the whirl of Christmas Day and recharge the batteries a bit after the hectic pre-Christmas rush. By allowing it to be turned into a commercial extravaganza I believe we are tacitly saying that we think it’s ok for people who work in the retail sector not<\/span> to have the same chance to wind-down and spend quality time with family and friends as everyone else.<\/p>\n

I also feel it says a great deal about what we think is most important as a society—not only being willing to trade off retail sector workers’ public holiday so we can add one more day of ‘shop till we drop’ to a year’s worth of regular shopping days, but also placing that ‘one more shopping day’ ahead of the opportunity to spend quality time with those we love: going to the beach or the park, having a picnic, just playing sport or hanging out in the backyard, or popping some corn and watching favourite movies together, listening to music or playing it, or simply curling up somewere comfortable with a good book.<\/p>\n

Because here’s the thing: these are things we can’t<\/em> just do any time. We have to work; the kids have to go to school. Often, too, we live at a distance from family and friends so public holidays are a real opportunity to spend some time together—and when all’s said and done, there are just so many other<\/em> days in the year to shop.<\/p>\n

As for Boxing Day being the big discount day: although we all like to take advantage of opportunities for bargains, they can just as readily be offered on days other than public holidays … But even if no other days in the year are quite so convenient, I still question why we should set the opportunity to shop for consumer items above all other values—is it really<\/em> so important to us? And if we mean it when we lament the loss of family and community values in our society, then why do we support intiatives that so obviously denigrate those values in favour of consumerism?<\/p>\n

These are the reflections that led me to decide that Boxing Day sales were not for me. I realise that I am just one individual, but if large enough numbers of individuals were to make that same personal choice then the stores would not open on public holidays—because retail outlets are in the business of making money and if no one’s buying then there is no reason for them to open.<\/p>\n

So this is one way in which as individuals we really can change the world—if enough of us want<\/em> to and are willing to change our behaviours in simple ways.<\/p>\n

—<\/p>\n

From tomorrow I’ll be bringing you “The Best of\u00a0 ‘… on Anything Really’ 2011”<\/em><\/strong>, which will run through until 1 January when there’ll be a special feature here in conjunction with my regular post on the Supernatural Underground<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Christmas Day here turned out to be a really nice day, brightly sunny but not too hot, and with a considerable reduction of earthshaking activity, ie from 46 and 45 respectively on the previous two days, down to ‘only’ 29 on the 25th. Needless to say, it was very nice to be able to focus […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10618","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10618","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10618"}],"version-history":[{"count":28,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10618\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10648,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10618\/revisions\/10648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10618"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10618"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10618"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}