You can’t put a price on Christmas
So here we are on Cyber Monday, which now comes on the heels of Small Business Saturday, which follows Black Friday, which came on the heels of Thanksgiving, a day ironically set aside to remind us that the things which matter most in life are not things at all.
But try telling that to a kid who comes into the Christmas season with his or her heart set upon receiving that gift every kid “must” have, according to the advertising industry which invented days like this to lay guilt trips onto overburdened moms and dads.
Here’s what those hucksters don’t want kids to know.
Two of this town’s greatest athletes came from families of modest means, imbuing them with lifelong values.
Larry Bird, speaking to an audience of middle school kids in Boston, quipped, “Converse will probably kill me for saying this, but Red Ball Jets were the sneakers I always wore when I was your age. My mom, would always get the cheapest ones she could find, rejects, $9 a pair; maybe an eyelet ring was missing or a stitch wasn’t straight but that made no difference to me. I thought a pair of Red Ball Jets was a wonderful present!”
They weren’t made of leather or endorsed by a star, but they provided Bird with memories that never faded, even after he became a spokesman for Converse.
Bobby Orr still remembers Hestler Green Flash hockey sticks.
“That was the stick every kid in Canada wanted for Christmas,” he told a youthful audience in West Roxbury kids, long after he becoming a pitchman for Coho sticks. “Whenever I got my hands on a Hester Green Flash, watch out! But it didn’t happen often.
“Whatever brands we used, they weren’t brand names. I remember going to my first training camp in junior hockey at 14. I broke my stick and when they went to get me a new one, they asked, ‘What kind of lie (blade angle) do you use?’ I was so embarrassed; I didn’t know what they meant. I didn’t know there was a difference.
“One of the big problems in hockey is that everything’s so expensive.
“The skates I wore when I was your age? We got them in exchanges and they were perfectly good. I didn’t get my first new ones until I was 12 and they were a present from a family friend.
“And you don’t need a $50 stick to play pond hockey either.”
No one in that room was more grateful for his words than the parents.
“So kids, listen to me, OK? Don’t be pressuring you parents to buy brand names you don’t need. You don’t have to spend big money to do well in a sport. All you have to do is love what you’re doing.”
It’s an urgently needed message, one we’ll never hear from corporate America, which knows the price of everything and the value of nothing.