Commercialism crashes Christmas
In the small town of Waynesville, N.C., there is a shop called “Christmas Is… Everyday,” which as the name implies sells Christmas products all year, seven days a week, 365. To the outsider it may either seem a little creepy or quaint. Creepy because it looks like an obsession, quaint because it is so unique.
Yet such a store is not far off from reality. Here in Chadron the big box stores have already had their Christmas decorations and products up since the day after Halloween. At Walmart, for example, the day before Halloween the store took down most of its haunted themes and costumes just to get ready for the next moneymaking season.
Even now Christmas music is already playing in some stores, and of course commercials advertising the best deals for the holidays have been on TV for weeks.
So eager are corporations to make a quick buck that Black Friday (the day after Thanksgiving where stores open early and have special deals) this year won’t happen – instead stores will be opening on Thanksgiving Day itself to peddle their wares. So much for time off for people to spend time with their families.
It’s bad enough that Christmas, whether viewed from a religious or non-religious view, has essentially become a corporate festival of silver and gold, but to drag this season of commercialized junk even further really burns out everyone and reduces Dec. 25 to an even greater disappointment and out-of-gas celebration.
Some apologists will say that all of the glitter and eye-candy is for the children, to fill them with wonder. But if that’s true then that means that we aren’t teaching our children to respect Christmas for the values of tradition or family, but to view it as an annual super elaborate birthday (not for the Galilean Carpenter) with flashy trees, tons of overpriced and cheaply made gifts, and hypes of Saint Nicholas and his magic-powered sleigh.
We need to stop falling for all of this commercial garbage and learn to appreciate our holidays for what they really stand for.