It is that time of the year again. Thanksgiving is quickly approaching, and the yuletide season is just around the corner. For evidence of this, one needs to look no farther than his local Walmart, which has certainly been proudly displaying their plastic Christmas trees and blow-up Frosty the Snowmans since Halloween. Yes, Christmas is almost here, and along with it doorbuster sales, long lines, late nights spent shopping online, and a last-minute sprint to the local Target. Over the years, this consumerism has come to define Christmas, and the once sentimental holiday has become dependent on the quality of gifts rather than the time spent with loved ones. Back in the day, at least as it has been explained to me, Christmas consisted of nights …show more content…
Over the years, kids have become to see amazing Christmas gifts as their right, not a privilege. The increase in exposure to television advertisements displaying the newest and best toys has sown the seeds of greed for that new better toy, which inevitably leads to dissatisfaction. Even if that child gets exactly what he wants, he will soon see a new toy he wants even more. In short, when children started learning that there is always a newer and better version, Christmas changed from breeding joy to inevitable dissatisfaction. Christmas has become a race to satisfy greedy children that, thanks to the rise in consumerism and the advertising associated with it, will never be satisfied. To find evidence of this disturbing aspect of contemporary Christmas, one has to look no further than YouTube. Several years ago, videos depicting spoiled children freaking out because they did not get exactly what they wanted, despite having a pile of presents right behind them. For further proof, one has to look no farther than Twitter, the ultimate online whining platform. Teenagers across the United States take to Twitter on Christmas day, complaining that their parents did not deliver on their wildest Christmas …show more content…
From its once great traditions of roasted chestnuts and stockings hung by the chimney with care, to the new custom of carefully practiced facial expressions, Christmas has predictably come to reflect society as a whole. As American society has become more materialistic and shallow, so also has Christmas become all about receiving rather than giving. The great holiday of joy and yuletide euphoria has become marked by stress about buying the right things and spending a sufficient amount of money. In our modern day, it is not the Grinch who will steal Christmas, but America’s unquenchable thirst for a perfect Christmas, a Christmas defined by money, gifts, and the practiced expressions millions of American children will display come Christmas
Dr. Seuss's original fable is a simple story told with a great moral that criticizes the commercialization of Christmas. The original story features an “Ebenezer Scrooge” type creature that lives up the mountains outside "Whoville." The Grinch indulges himself in the annual ritual of spoiling everyone's festivities with a series of nasty pranks. This particular year however he plans to sabotage the holiday season by dressing as Santa Claus, clim...
The industry rapidly establishes consumerism in Americans. For instance, Disney since the age of three drives children to own collections of films and merchandise in order to fulfill satisfaction in the idealistic fairytale living. Americans do not realize these material goods are not necessarily important, instead, it becomes a routine of material objects to have a sense of completeness; these buying habits are perpetual. America is now defined as materialistic rather than over-consumption. People deliberately purchase material goods constantly and frequently without needing it. Shopping has become a lifestyle, there is no appreciation or sense of value to what we own, and instead it is depicted and seen as a “retail therapy.” The consumption of materialistic goods is what makes America feel happy and complete.
Christmas has consumed itself. At its conception, it was a fine idea, and I imagine that at one point its execution worked very much as it was intended to. These days, however, its meaning has been perverted; its true purpose ignored and replaced with a purpose imagined by those who merely go through the motions, without actually knowing why they do so.
It’s December of 1801 and the whole town is decorating, dancing, singing, and laughing as they get ready for a near holiday: Christmas. All but one pessimistic, obdurate cripple of a man. His name is Ebenezer Scrooge, an undermined old male swathed in dark clothing. He is typically found strolling the streets on Victorian London with poor posture, eyes locked on the cracked sidewalk beneath the soles of his shoes. Slumping along, carolers cease to sing near him and nobody speaks when in his presence. Scrooge is a prejudging business man who hurries to be left alone and disregards cheer. He is obdurate and blind to the consequences of his actions. Sudden wealth brings a snobbiness when his business partner dies, and as a result, his one true love divorces him, sending him into a state of hatred and regret. With this evidence to back it up, Scrooge can be perceived as a negative, crippling man with little tolerance to change. However, things are bound to change with the visitation of the wraiths: the Spirits of Christmas Past, Present, and Yet to Come, an inevitable change that be...
Charles dickens classic novella “A Christmas Carol” endorses the notion that “Generosity involves more than the giving of money, it’s also about the giving of one's goodwill, compassion, sympathy, empathy and kindness. By taking his seemingly irredeemable protagonist Ebenezer Scrooge on a supernatural journey, Dickens’ intends to convey to all of society the importance of generosity. He proclaims that generosity of the spirit defines Christmas, and goes a large way towards defining true humanity for him as well.
Christmas used to be a time when families gathered and love enclosed each member. Meals and stories were shared and times were simpler. Christmas Eve and Christmas Day Mass were special times for families to sit back in a pew and remember the true meaning of Christmas as carols were sung in the high choirs. This serenity and peace seems to be a thing of the past. Now, people are drowning in the pressure that Christmas is all about presents, and that unwrapping gifts on Christmas morning is what this joyous occasion is centered around. Another misconceived thought is that Christmas has to be bought and given away in order to have a good time. In 2010, a stunning “4.8 million people [found] time on Christmas Day to go online and shop.” On the contrary, only “4.5 million people who attend an Anglican, Catholic, Methodist, Baptist or Pentecostal church,” was present in church on Christmas Day. The thought that shopping is more important than the celebration of the birth of Jesus Christ is appalling to Christians throughout the world.
Ah, to be a kid again. How wonderful it would be to relive the magic of Christmas. Don’t get me wrong, I have always been a kid at heart and a true lover of Christmas. But as we get older and we realize that Santa Claus and the North Pole were just stories our parents told us so we’d behave, Christmas starts to lose that magical feeling. No matter how much we might still love it, Christmastime just isn’t the same as when we were young. And at a time of all the aggravating shopping hustle and bustle, dents in the pockets, headaches, traffic jams and long lines, I begin to realize that God has sent me the most magical Christmas gift of all, a beautiful three year old whom I can relive Christmas in all over. Through my child’s eyes, I see myself each time his face lights up at the sight of Santa, and I feel his anticipation each morning as he faithfully opens up one more window on the Christmas calendar. Tonight, as we decorate the tree, I admiringly watched his tiny fingers delicately place each of the ornaments on all the same branches until they drooped to the floor. So proud of his work, I secretly placed some elsewhere, as to not hurt his feelings, and wondered how many times my own mother had done the same thing. And after a long day of shopping and excitement, I watched his eyelids begin to droop while lying underneath the warm glow of the Christmas tree lights.
What about other countries though? Is the Christmas season all about giving and receiving gifts? Are children in Spain rewarded by Santa with gifts and toys on Christmas Eve? In this essay we will look at what Christmas season means in Spain, and what traditions are prevalent in their culture. We will also look at the Christmas related traditions of Americans, and how those compare and contrast to those in Spain.
Today it seems as though Christmas has fallen victim to materialism and commercialization. Rather than it being a time of loving and giving, it has become a stressful season of greed. Amidst all the hustle and bustle, it is important for us to recognize the true reason of the season, and celebrate in a fashion that exemplifies that reason.
Holidays have always been known to affect our consumer culture for many years, but how it all began eludes many people and very few studies have been completed on it. Even though some say that the subject is too broad to precisely identify how holidays, especially Christmas, directly affect our market, I have found that people’s values, expectations and rituals related to holidays can cause an excessive amount of spending among our society. Most people are unaware that over the centuries holidays have become such a profitable time of year for industries that they now starting to promote gift ideas on an average of a month and a half ahead of actual holiday dates to meet consumer demands.
The first significant alteration of Scrooge’s character occurred when he was a young man, as he became increasingly involved in the occupation of business, where wealth and assets are subjects of great examination and often possessiveness. Described and portrayed as an avaricious, bitter, and solitary man, Scrooge is introduced as critically immoral, occupied constantly by business. Christmas, as the faithful celebrate it, is referred to by Scrooge as a humbug, or fraud. On the topic of a merry Christmas, as his nephew related to it, Scrooge declared that an individual as poor as Fred has little or nothing to be merry about. In one of the most disturbing quotations from Scrooge, he casually remarks to two gentlemen requesting donations for the poor, “if [idle people] would rather die [than attend prisons and workhouses], they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population” (11). Scrooge accuses Bob Cratchit of being greedy for requesting Christmas as a day to retreat from work to be with his family, when in fact it is he who is greedy, essentially concerned with profits, not people. Orally, this point is perhaps best illustrated in the Past when the girl he once loved more than money, Belle, declared that, “a [golden] idol has displaced me” (37). Fully aware that Scrooge’s priorities are deranged, and he has been degraded to worship wealth rather than valuing the qualities of human love, Belle leaves him.
In the novel, “A Christmas Carol” by Charles Dickens, the author tells a story about an irritable man named Ebenezer Scrooge who dislikes Christmas. Not only was this novelette written to amuse and teach a moral lesson, but Charles Dickens also used his ability to express his outlook on the social and economic struggles during his time period which was the Victorian Era. In the novel, he shows the effects of gluttony, fortune, and the ignorance to the welfare of others. This story reveals the economic and social conflicts between the rich and the poor, and resembles how moral corruption and self-indulgence are the results of wealth and power.
Christmas to me is a celebration, which includes spending time with my family, decorating the entire house, inside and out, and shopping, for the people I love. Doing this with the people I love is what means the most to me. Spending Christmas with my family is very important to me. We usually gather and celebrate at my parent’s house, in East Tennessee. My husband, our three children, and myself travel from California. My two sisters, their husbands, and children come from a nearby town, for our celebration.
I love Christmas. I think it is the most wonderful day of the year.When my calander mark December 26 butterflies flutter around my stomach and I feel like a kid in the candy store . I love this day so much because I eat delicious food, see my family, and receive presents.
In many ways Christmas is similar to Thanksgiving in the way we celebrate it. We switch sides, sometimes Christmas is at our house, tons of food is made and we play games. Depending on what side of the family we’re spending Christmas with, there’s a theme, for example, about two or three years ago we spent Christmas with my mom’s side of the family and it was a pajama party and last Christmas we spent with my dad’s side the theme was ugly Christmas sweaters. Every year no matter where we spend Christmas, we always have to get some of my great grandma’s amazing and delicious Champurrado. She makes Champurrado every single year, she won’t tell anyone how she makes it for some reason, but her Champurrado is like heaven in a cup. On both sides of my family,it’s tradition for us get together on Christmas Eve and we have dinner, watch movies, play games, and even take naps, all until midnight and that’s when we open our presents. Also, on both sides, the adults do White Elephant and sometimes depending on what the majority vote is, they’ll do a secret santa exchange. The only thing my mom’s side of the family does differently than my dad’s, is that prior to getting together on Christmas Eve, the adults put each kid’s name in a hat and each person draws a name, and the name they draw is the kid they have to buy a gift for, and they’ll say the least or most amount of money they can spend on that gift.