Amelia Epperson: Don’t forget that holidays are meant for family, not shopping

Fifteen percent off everything, 50 percent off everything. Come in and buy! buy! buy!!

Every year around the holidays this is what you see from every store nationwide. When did the holidays become about sales and what you can get for others? How did it stop being about family and spending time together?

Instead of going out and putting money in the pockets of big-name stores, maybe go out and enjoy a long conversation with a friend. Facetime for your family whom you don’t get to see very often. The effort to make that call could be worth more than any gift. Sit down and put together winter bags for the homeless. Seeing their smiles when you give it to them will have you feeling a sense of happiness and pride that you can’t get when you shop until you drop.

You can choose how to have your holidays – filled with toys and goods or filled with love, family and friends. Bring back what the holidays were meant to be about. Spending time will people, not with things.

This story was originally published December 5, 2017 at 4:59 PM with the headline "Amelia Epperson: Don’t forget that holidays are meant for family, not shopping."