Peace on Earth Through the Internet

All I wanted were a few extra lights. I figured since it wasn't even December yet, hitting the local hardware store wouldn't be too much of an ordeal. However, a month before Christmas, the aisles were already teaming with cranky, overtired holiday shoppers, and the shelves were mostly picked-over. Even the parking lot was depressing, a zig-zag ballet of distracted drivers.

When I got home, there were reports on television about tramplings at department stores, and frantic pilgrims shooting each other over the last Tickle Me Elmo. The tumult was such that it had been declared "Black Friday". Ugh.

I decided I could make due with what we already had, and more importantly, that I would avoid shopping malls and big box centres like the plague until well after Boxing Day. For the next month, there would be lots of baking sessions, and tree trimming, and listening to Jimmy Buffett's version of "Christmas Island". There would not, I vowed, be any unnecessary contact with nasty vibes. I didn't want to have to stoop to doing anything that might get me on the naughty list.

At that point, I uttered a prayer of thanks for the Internet for making it possible for me to remain in my happy little holiday bubble. I could do my gift shopping online, and have goodies show up at my house, as if left by magical invisible elves. I could donate to charities while sipping cider and eating cookies. I could send greetings around the world without unnecessary paper waste and postage. Cyber-cynics could gripe all they wanted about a lack of human contact, and the downfall of social relations. Perhaps they were right, but at this point in the calendar, I was happy to stay away from other people, to wish them well from afar, and to not be part of the tinsel-trimmed insanity.