Kudos to REI for crafting their #OPTOUTSIDE campaign and shaking up the North American retail world by daring to close their doors on ‘Black Friday’.
Our clan has long been somewhat holiday nonconformist; a big box retailer breaking out of the ‘consume all you can’ mold on (what used to be anyway) one of the biggest shopping days of the holiday season is easy as pie to get behind.
More often than not we’ve chosen to spend the long Thanksgiving break savoring the riches of public land, either on the ski slopes, hiking trails, hunting grounds or in/ on the river. Sure, it’s often chilly out, but most venues are wide open and uncrowded, and lunch on the lift | in the cabin | off the tailgate | by the riverbank always tastes better, particularly without Uncle Fester or Aunt Darcy endlessly criticizing your hair | clothes | kids | vehicle | job | life while you choke down another slab of dry turkey and canned sweet potatoes, lukewarm under their crown of oozing marshmallows.
This really isn’t a rant against retail, in fact far from it. We’re deeply supportive of gifted craftsmen and innovative retailers, most of which, if truth genuinely be told, live in the small business world, and we’d encourage you to support them openly and generously this season. Working in the retail industry is brutally challenging, and we support any and all grinding it out behind the counter, particularly during the next six weeks or so.
This is a concession that life is often much too much about possessions and possessing rather than living; most of us live with far too much ‘stuff’ crowding the really good laying right before us.
[We’re still of the provincial mindset that all Christmas and holiday season gifts should be handmade anyway, though we realize that opinion is about as rare as finding a bona fide Trump supporter in Seattle or Austin. Try a handmade holiday some year; you’ll be tempted to never go back….]
Moms and Dads, grandparents, big brothers and sisters, cousins and kinfolk – can the shopping plans this week, grab the kids, assorted worthy relatives and friendly neighbors and get outside. There’s always something to do, no matter where you are and how much is jingling in your pocket (another amen for public lands!).
Go fish.
See you on the water Friday.
Image by Jake McGlothlin as Shane Rickert stokes the fire.
