MamaBlogger365 - What's Inspiring About Exhaustion? by Shira Adler, Diva Mama

How is it possible that I’m burnt out on the holidays and they haven’t yet begun? Please God, and anyone else who’s tuned into Diva Mama radio, isn’t there a better way to celebrate ancient pagan rituals, the journey of syphilis-carrying Pilgrims, and yes, even the birth of baby Jesus, than by promoting rampant, unbridled capitalism? No? Then listen up.

Less than a week before Thanksgiving I know that Black Friday isn’t simply a day of mind-numbing sales at big-box retailers who are sucking the soul and sanity from our lives; it’s the color of the above referenced souls after we’ve drunk the Kool-Aid and gotten up at 3:00 a.m. for the sake of saving twenty bucks on an off-brand Serbian-made LCD TV that looks like it was designed in 1967 and will be nothing more than a doorstop by the time Dick Clark wishes us, in that hard-to-understand, slurry speech of his, a merry 2012.

As I sink into the madness that Colonel Kurtz must have felt in that oft-quoted knee slapper Heart of Darkness, I know without any qualification that we are being driven to merchandise madness by overtly desperate retailers, and for those of us, like me, who are already struggling with shoe string budgets I want to run to my window, open it and scream so everyone can hear me... “I’’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore.”

Or maybe I would chant slowly and without regret... “and if you keep ringing that damn bell I’m going to bring a bigger bell, or maybe even one of those air-horns from a college football game, and I’m going to blow it in your face every time you ring that silly little bell of yours!”

As you can see it won’t take much to push me over the edge, or maybe I’m already there. The holidays are supposed to be inspiring yet for many of us, they are simply exhausting.

Maybe it’s because not even a month ago, Halloween was a disaster due to that October blizzard that cancelled school, with many of us without power for close to a week. For Pete’s sake, I still have Halloween decorations on my dining room window. So, how’s a gal supposed to feel about hot-swapping Pumpkin Pete for Tommy the Turkey? Right about now, not so much.

I’m still recovering from being stuck with bored children who had no access to their Wiis, X-Box 360s, PS3s and iPods. You’d have thought the world had come to an end. Even with books, magazines, board games and visits to malls and movie theaters life a few weeks ago looked very different.

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