"Black Friday" is black in more ways this year

I was really saddened at the state of humanity when I read the newspaper online this afternoon. One story from the AP was about a WalMart employee in New York who was killed by a stampeding mob of customers when he opened the doors this morning. These people couldn't even be bothered to stop to help him -- they just stepped over him. Then some were actually upset at being told that the store was closing for a few hours because of the DEATH of this employee. Yes -- he died. Yes -- they whined about how long they had stood in line to get in and didn't want to leave. Yes -- their ability to purchase crap from China was more important than the life a another person. You can ready the rest of the story here. The second story came out of California. Apparently 2 people are dead after a shooting in a Toy's R Us store. Now, I need to point out that authorities have not yet determined the cause of the shooting and won't confirm that it was because of a toy. Perhaps it was gang-related. The real question is "who in their right mind brings a loaded weapon into a TOY STORE?" You can read that story here.

Bottom line -- Black Friday is truly a black day for our society as a whole this year. While there are innocent people being taken hostage and killed in India we are fighting over toys (probably imported from China) that will break and/or be forgotten shortly after Christmas morning. Pretty sad. Maybe we should all think about this and let it affect how we celebrate Christmas this year. What's more important to us? And what are we teaching our children? Is a pile of bargains under the tree more important than human life?

Here are my little Trick or Treaters this year -- at least the 3 big ones. Rebecca (age 7) is dressed as Mary the Mother of Jesus. Melanie (age 5) is dressed as Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha, a Native American who has been recognized by the Catholic Church and elevated to the status of "blessed". Olivia (age 3) is a tiger. The older girls were dressed also for All Saints Day so their costumes were doing double duty. Olivia was supposed to be Saint Elizabeth of Hungary for All Saints Day but she decided she liked the tiger costume more. We told people she was either the tiger/lion who ate Saints Perpetua and Felicity or she was one of the tigers on Noah's Ark.



Here's my littlest Trick or Treater with daddy. Stephen is just barely 6 months old. I have an angel costume that the girls wore for their first Halloweens but it did look a little too frilly for him. Plus it was long sleeved and long legged...not a great combination for Halloween in Texas this year. I think the high that day was about 82 degrees.