Read books online
at our other site:
The Literature Page

Quotations Weblog

Return to the current weblog entries

Christmas Shopping

November 25th, 2005 by Laura Moncur in Holidays

George Washington had a vision for this country. Was it three days of uninterrupted shopping?

Jeff Melvoin, Northern Exposure, Bolt from the Blue, 1994

If you are like many people in the United States, the day after Thanksgiving is a big shopping day. Many stores hold sales on items that are ridiculously low just to attract us. After seven years of working at K-Mart, I vowed never to go shopping on the day after Thanksgiving. I no longer work in retail. I don’t have to be there in those crowds and madness, so I won’t be out there looking for the great deals.

For those of you braving the swarm of shoppers and searching for those elusive bargains, here’s a little advice:

When you go to buy, use your eyes, not your ears.

Czech Proverb

It was never what I wanted to buy that held my heart’s hope. It was what I wanted to be.

Lois McMaster Bujold, “Memory”, 1996

Costly thy habit [dress] as thy purse can buy; But not expressed in fancy – rich, not gaudy. For the apparel oft proclaims the man.

William Shakespeare, ‘Hamlet,’ Act I, Scene iii

Civility costs nothing and buys everything.

Lady Mary Wortley Montagu

Americans become unhappy and vicious because their preoccupation with amassing possessions obliterates their loneliness. This is why production in America seems to be on such an endless upward spiral: every time we buy something we deepen our emotional deprivation and hence our need to buy something.

Philip Saltier

No Comments »