Sunday, December 21, 2008

Christmas: The Aftermath

Two days ago one of my favorite days of the year finally presented itselft. When kids are asked what is their favorite part of Christmas, most of them say the opening of presents. As for me, I am very similar but I have a one that comes just before it. I know what is better than presents, well i have the answer. Trivial Pursuit. Every Christmas night i go to my aunts house in Northfield and three families are there every year. We all have do a gift exchange and eat a magnificent dinner, All 15 of us. Then it is after dinner when my favorite part of Christmas happens. Every year we play Trivial Pursuit and it gets very competative. We played for maybe 2 hours and there was non-stop laughter and yelling. The reason this is my favorite part of the holiday is because when I am playing I forget about all the presents I have gotten, the food I've eaten or the things I am going to do tomorrow with my presents. I am just truely happy to be with family and I think that is what the Christmas Spirit is all about.

Thursday, December 4, 2008

Wait We're in a Recession???

For the last 12 months our nation has been at an all time low economically since 1980. But for some reason even though our nation hasn't seen it this bad in almost 30 years it seems as if we weren't in a recession at all. I was inspired by Adam "Gutty" Gutman's post about the meaning of Thanksgiving when i realized how much high school kids in the North Shore are really effected by this so called recession. These past months the news of the economic crisis has been chaotic and plentiful. The news keeps saying the Dow was down 600 points today and mortgages have been at an all time low but in the North Shore i haven't seen a huge difference in my way of life this year than in past years. In February i got my driver's license and that was right before gas prices began to rise. When i saw the gas prices soar over $4 a gallon i thought i was feeling the economic crisis pretty bad. Now these last 3 months the price for gas has been way down and i feel as if I'm in no prediciment at all. My main point is that living in the North Shore creates a blanket over the so called crisis. Obviously the crisis is hitting our parents more than we think. All i hear in New Trier's hallways is "God my dad didn't buy me the new Blackberry Storm. Oh ya do you like my new UGGS." That sentence right there just totally cotradicts what is going on in our world right now. Parents are buying kids unnecessary gifts just to please their kids. In the rest of the country families are cutting back so much that actual necessities are being put by the way side. In closing, the North Shore is blinding us, high school students, and may hurt in the long run because it is sheltering us from the "real" world.