My daughter Amy is in Perth, Australia. In Perth, shops close at 5:30 pm every day except Thursday, the one late shopping day of the week.  Most shops are closed completely on Sunday.  To her, this is odd.  Me … I’m old enough to remember a time when the same thing was true here.   Very few stores were open on Sunday. Evenings were not spent at the mall because the malls were closed.

This morning I read about a manager of a Pizza Hut in Indiana who was fired because he chose to keep the restaurant closed on Thanksgiving Day so his service team could spend the day with their families, instead of working.  (He has apparently been offered his job back if he wants it.). This year, some retailers opened their doors on Thanksgiving Day in the US so people could start their Black Friday shopping even earlier.

Call me crazy, but I’m just not sure why we need all this extra time to shop, to spend, to get more stuff. Ads preach the message that if we don’t dish out hundreds of dollars on expensive stuff, the people we love won’t feel loved or appreciated.  For me personally, I know I’m loved, appreciated, cared for when someone gives me a gift of something truly special, near and dear … their time.   As I get older, I have  come to appreciate having my family together in one place, at one time more than anything else.

As we head into the holiday season, I encourage you to ask yourself how you can give your service team members the precious gift of time.  It has become a rare commodity.