“How about instead of buying gifts we donate to charity for Christmas”
I’m tired of this Christmas trope where in order to recognize and celebrate the religious, family, or charitable side of Christmas it means you also have to reject the commercial, capitalist side. Christmas is all of those things and all of those things are good.
You know what’s just as helpful as giving some cash to a charity…supporting businesses so people can earn a living. A lot of places especially small businesses don’t record profits until the Christmas season, which is where the term black friday comes from. It’s the first time of the year they make money. Everyone wins when you buy gifts. The person getting the gift, the person giving the gift, the store it was bought from and the people who work there.
It also annoys me when I see this trope in media where people are murdering each other for Christmas gifts. I go to sales at toy stores all the time around Christmas and it’s fine. The amount of Christmas shopping violence is comparable to the amount of shopping violence year round, it’s just spotlighted to make some anti-commercial message about Christmas. Fake news.
It’s so annoying that there’s so much commercialized Christmas content that’s all about railing against the commercialism of Christmas. Fuck off yes I know it’s about Jesus…I know it’s about family and I know charity is important…but also capitalism is great, presents are awesome, tree’s lights and decorations are fun. Take your commie horseshit to another holiday. So yeah donate to charity if you’ve vetted the charity a lot, but then also celebrate the rest of Christmas too, it’s not one or the other.
Just a thought that popped into my head: If you want the best mix of charity and gift giving, just buy gifts that are handmade from small businesses and independent sellers on the internet. Do some shopping on etsy and you’ll be putting money in the pocket of someone who deserves it, and you’ll also have a unique gift that isn’t just some mass produced chinese sweatshop garbage.
Lots of charities are crap (hence why you need to vet them, which shouldn’t even be a problem, but it is) and being that pretentious prick who whines about commercialism during Christmas is even worse than being the mouthy vegan at the family Thanksgiving table. If you really want to be a good person, go and serve your community directly. Help the people in your neighborhood instead of reaching for the instant gratification of throwing a couple bucks at a giant multinational charity organization. Donate a few hundred dollars worth of pet food to the local animal shelters. Distribute winter coats to homeless folks. Do some work with meals on wheels. Or don’t and just enjoy the holiday with your loved ones.
I honestly don’t know how to tell you these shocking facts but fucked up things in stories were not invented by AO3
I literally saw that someone replied to a post that talked about content in public libraries saying that that content should be regulated as well and Im just like when your statement can’t be distinguished from something a Southern Baptist pastor would say you really need to take a hard look at what kind of belief system you’ve let yourself fall into.
When fiction deals with difficult material (as it almost inevitably will) and it’s available for public consumption, you have the choice to ban anything controversial or teach people from a young age how to analyse and interpret literature and media. Only the second option builds valuable thinking skills and is actually possible.
The fact he’s named kinda brushes over the fact this is a wild elephant. Born in the wild, raised in the wild, the only human interaction is watching the safaris. And after mean humans shot him, he decided the best course of action was to go visit the nice humans who just take pictures in hopes they’d help him. And then, even though they didn’t help him right away, he trusted that because they continued to be nice, he was safe, and they would help him.
also the people saw an elephant and were like “that’s a ben”
salt & vinegar chips are snacks for fucking masochists. literally the entire flavour of the goddamn chip is “acetic acid, which will hurt your tongue, and then just salt on top of that to hurt it worse”. it’s brutal. this chip is designed to hurt you
some of you are acting like i hate salt and vinegar chips and i need to clarify: i do not hate them. old dutch baked salt & vinegar chips is my favourite flavour of chips and one time i ate two bags of them in two days and my tongue started bleeding. i love the goddamn things. but why did humanity make them. to what end. my tongue literally bled from eating them. the flavour of them is just acid and salt. their gimmick is pain. and yet……. Chips Good…….
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