{"id":2451992,"date":"2019-12-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-12-09T07:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/?p=317336"},"modified":"2019-12-09T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-12-09T07:00:00","slug":"paul-andersen-an-ascetic-contemplates-the-holidays","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/paul-andersen-an-ascetic-contemplates-the-holidays\/","title":{"rendered":"Paul Andersen: An ascetic contemplates the holidays"},"content":{"rendered":"
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I can no longer \u201ckill a tree for Christ,\u201d so does that make me an eco-Scrooge?<\/p>\n

I used to drive my family up to the killing fields above Ruedi, tromp up into the woods, find the \u201cperfect tree,\u201d say a prayer of thanks, and defy our collective conscience with a handsaw. Then we would drag our holiday cheer down to the car and strap it on like a deer carcass. A month later, the tree was thrown onto the wood pile.<\/p>\n

Call me an irreligious un-American, but the annual Christmas harvest is not an act of stewardship by carefully pruning the forest. No one takes Charlie Brown trees, but only the best they can find.<\/p>\n

I\u2019m worse still about holiday gifting. Last week, MileagePlus sent out a mailer: \u201cLight up the holidays with 2,000 bonus miles.\u201d All you have to do is spend $8,000 in the month before Christmas.<\/p>\n

This doesn\u2019t quite square for a family that\u2019s been striving to resist the materialism of Christmas and live up to the original Christian concept that rampant materialism is a deterrent to the spirit. How quaint.<\/p>\n

Earning miles is alluring if you want to fly hither and yon without a care for \u201cflight shame.\u201d But to earn enough miles, you must spend like a Goldman Sacks hedge fund manager. And here\u2019s what you buy: \u201cThe Compact Underwater Scooter\u201d from Hammacher Schlemmer.<\/p>\n

Billed as \u201cAmerica\u2019s longest running catalogue,\u201d the 2019 cover features a man jetting through azure water by the aforementioned scooter, blissfully skimming the rippled white sand of some tropical beach.<\/p>\n

Paging through, it\u2019s hard not to click the mouse on \u201cThe Facial Muscle Toner.\u201d This $100 gadget is modeled by a comely young woman clenching in her mouth a tennis ball-sized object with twin wands attached to opposite sides.<\/p>\n

The woman appears to be shaking her head back and forth to activate the wands, which tone facial muscles so that one\u2019s cheeks don\u2019t sag and one\u2019s chin won\u2019t wrinkle. If anyone is watching you do this, they will laugh so hard their abs will sustain the best toning of all.<\/p>\n

Then there\u2019s the $200 \u201cCompression Knee Massager,\u201d a cap-like device that heats and compresses the ailing knee for miraculous healing. It advertises \u201cthree levels of soothing warmth\u201d so that the consumer can become limber enough to get down on their knees in praise of techno-toys.<\/p>\n

But for the truly upscale homeowner \u2014 those with built-in pools \u2014 \u201cThe Motorized Pool Float\u201d is irresistible. The catalogue shows a man grinning ear-to-ear while piloting this floating easy chair across a pool with dual propellers \u2014 \u201cthe same shrouded propellers used in tugboats\u201d \u2014 so as to effortlessly reach the margarita sweating in a koozie at poolside.<\/p>\n

These and other unimaginably gratifying gifts will, alas, not be adorning the Andersens\u2019 Christmas tree (ours is the branching limb of a long-dead pinon tree with cubist panache) during the holidays because we prefer to save our hard-earned money rather than hand it over to catalog purveyors and credit managers.<\/p>\n

Again, we\u2019re out of step, as saving money makes no sense (cents) because interest rates are lower than Donald Trump\u2019s morality meter. There\u2019s a perfectly good reason for an accepted national policy that discourages savings and encourages spending. It\u2019s called capitalism, and it\u2019s what keeps employees punching the clock.<\/p>\n

Instead of saving, most Americans are shackled by debt to mortgages, car payments and credit card interest rates. Debt is highly vaunted, even as it erodes lifestyles with crippling obligations and dividends of stress and anxiety.<\/p>\n

But, enough of the Scrooge mode. Now\u2019s the time to prop up the tree, build a stack of gifts around it, sing a few carols, eat a sumptuous meal, and plan that coveted trip to Cancun with bonus miles.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve noticed a little flab around my jowls, so while relaxing on the beach, I\u2019ll activate the Facial Toner. Once I get those crazy wands gyrating, I\u2019ll have the chiseled jaw of Cary Grant.<\/p>\n

Then I can forget our debts and pilot The Motorized Pool Float into the Caribbean sunset while humming, \u201cAngels we have heard on high, tell us to go out and buy\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

Paul Andersen\u2019s column appears on Mondays. He may be reached at andersen@rof.net<\/a>.<\/p>\n

via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I can no longer \u201ckill a tree for Christ,\u201d so does that make me an eco-Scrooge? I used to drive my family up to the killing fields above Ruedi, tromp up into the woods, find the \u201cperfect tree,\u201d say a prayer of thanks, and defy our collective conscience with a handsaw. Then we would drag […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2451992","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-19 03:12:00","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley's Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451992","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2451992"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2451992\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2451992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2451992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2451992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}