Picture from The Huffington Post

If all the people who complain about how commercialised Christmas is and how the shops seem to start ramming it down our throats earlier every year did something about it then maybe, just maybe, the true meaning of Christmas would return. Believe it or not there is something that we can all do, nothing. That's right, if we ignored Christmas until December then it might not sink in straight away but surely the shops would realise that filling up valuable shelf space in July with items that aren't going to make a penny for six months is a stupid idea. 

One such idiocy is the concept of Black Friday, which although a tradition in America since the 1930s has crept into this country in the past few years in order to encourage people to shop more. Most shops close on Thanksgiving in the US and Black Friday was created to get people out again and heralds the start of Christmas shopping. Part of me likes the fact that this might mean that Christmas doesn't start in the summer over there so perhaps there's a case for a designated day to drop the flag and announce that it is okay to start thinking Christmassy thoughts. It's a bit silly because we don't celebrate Thanksgiving over here (although that might come in one day for no other reason than to get people to spend yet more money, they gave us Halloween when we didn't really need it) so to have something that happens the day after a day we don't have is just folly. We have shops open for 364 days in the year in which we can shop if we need to, and as Black Friday isn't a Bank Holiday this means that the working day faces the strain of thousands of people ringing in sick to go to the shops and fight over things that they think are cheap but have have the prices inflated in advance so that they can 'reduce' them and fool idiots. Works every time.

The fact that this frenzy of consumerism takes place the day after Americans give thanks for what they have proves that Americans, despite what we think, do irony.

The Sunday Alternative Podcast #65 is available now from here

Please read my November newsletter about funding for new projects.

This week's episode of The Random Saturday Sessions is here.