Even though I cannot go to amusement parks or theatres or sports clubs or any of those things anthros seem to love, I can read about them and I do. And the disturbing article I read a few days ago was about how more and more people with money are separating themselves from those with less, for example, by buying the top tickets at, say, Disney World (there are three levels, the top one offering the best places in line, food specials for the family and so on, while the next two levels are tailored for families who cannot afford the top level. Families with money also want the best seats in a theatre or order a special car to be seen in when using a taxi service. People with enough money can join an expensive gym at the “executive level” instead of buying a plain membership with no perks. These are only a few examples of areas in which an individual or a family can keep up or surpass the Joneses.
Maybe all of this relates to the way anthros have gotten away from what the holidays meant long ago. Mama always tells me about Little Women, the Louisa May Alcott book in which the mother and four sisters are struggling, with no father at home, to make ends meet, and for Christmas, receive only one gift from whomever has drawn her name.
Mama says we should do that for our holidays, too, instead of having so many gifts to unwrap, most of which no one needs anyway (except for that catnip-stuffed little mouse with the velcro opening down its tummy where my drugs can be replenished when stale!).
Mama says that Christmas is for little kids, but they don’t have to have huge piles of stuff that they look at once and then toss aside. Those little grandkids seem to have more fun playing tombola (a kind of bingo) before the real celebration than they do opening presents.
But what do they expect when their parents spend a fortune to put them at the front of the line on the best rides at fun parks or they are used to riding in hotshot cars rented by their parents to show their status to the neighbourhood (speaking of which, have you seen those little Ferraris for tiny children? Oh, boy). Kids outgrow clothes so fast, and yet mama says that prices she sees on some outfits for kids are like prices on Prada or Gucci! Yet if your kid doesn’t have on the ‘right’ outfit, he or she is somehow not measuring up to his or her peers and their labeled clothing, or, maybe, it’s just the mamas who are competing…
Mama often finds better quality clothing in kids’ second-hand shops where other mamas ditch their kids’ expensive things because the he/she has outgrown them so fast. And not every family has a younger sibling oif the same sex to whom the hand-me-downs can continue being used.
Mama and her friends trade around all the time, and some of her best stuff comes from friends who bought something that didn’t work and vice versa. And mama buys great things at a snazzy used-clothing store near our village—better things than one can find nowadays at much less expense.
Maybe that’s what I’ll do for presents for the family. I’ll only give them used things but they’ll still know I’m thinking about them. Kitties don’t need status symbols, after all.
Maybe that chewed-up sock for papa—he know it means a lot to me to part with it!
And for mama, maybe I’ll give her a little more massage when I do my kneading thing in the morning to wake her up. She’ll love that and that’s a present I can give anytime of the day!
I think I’ll throw in my little sack of catnip, too, so she can space out the way I do.
But I hope they don’t wrap up a used rat for me!!!
