'Tis the Season for Connecting

Thanksgiving is over, and our community is now in full tilt December holiday mode. Festive red, green, silver and gold decorations grace our homes and public places, and that unique holiday spirit is in the air. You know it well. The Yuletide frame of mind, during which we all find ourselves smiling at strangers, heavily tipping service providers and getting misty eyed as we hear our favorite holiday songs.

My most vivid family memories involve Christmas. Perhaps because December is the one time of the year in which hectic lives slow down and we spend more than five minutes in the room with our loved ones. Businesses and schools close, the kids’ extracurricular activities are postponed, hope and goodwill spill forth. Our nation’s Puritan ghosts and their rigid work ethic are temporarily silenced and we are given cultural permission to joyfully celebrate faith and family.  

Thus, shame on us.

Shame on us for believing that the best thing we could have possibly done for our families at the start of this Christmas season was to stampede the retail stores and demonstrate bariatric-level consumption behavior. Most of you were simply out there over-consuming. But others decided that Black Friday entitled you to abandon basic civility, resulting in lots of shoving, cussing and rude conduct. And a small but still alarming number of you opted for more extreme animalistic behavior involving pepper spray, fists and guns.

When did we become more passionate about our HD TVs than the well-being of our next door neighbors? Why have we decided that ensuring our child has an Xbox is more important than teaching him or her about courtesy and good citizenship?

As a college student I was introduced to Emile Durkheim’s sociological concept of anomie, a term that translates from Greek to mean “without law”. Anomie concerns the collapse of social bonds between an individual and their community. When these bonds break down, an individual’s sense of social identity is eroded, leading to a rejection of self-regulating behavior. After all, social norms and civil behavior matter little to someone who feels no connection with or responsibility to others.

I do not think I understood anomie until Black Friday 2011.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m a champion shopper, and I am all for stimulating the economy. And I know that Black Friday can be a fun diversion after spending hours in the kitchen with Thanksgiving meals. But Black Friday 2011 went viral in a non-cyberspace way.

I have a new Facebook friend named Stevie Nelson. Earlier this year, Stevie turned 6. His birthday wish? For party guests to forego presents for him and to bring dog and cat food, vitamins, collars and toys to fill his parents’ truck with donations for the local humane society. So far, Stevie has raised more than $28,000 in funds and about $6,000 in product donations.

Stevie and others like him remind me that there is hope. That not everyone is a gun-toting, pepper spraying uber-consumer. Stevie puts me back in that Yuletide frame of mind in which I believe we all have the ability to make a difference in our communities, and that it starts with strong family connections. Regardless of how your family is configured, it starts there.

I wish for each of you a memorable, family-centered holiday season. Don’t forget to smile at strangers, over-tip servers and shout out holiday songs at the top of your lungs with your children. Spill forth goodwill and bask in your connections to family, neighbors and our wonderful community.