Winter Break: Thought and response.

Each year millions of Americans alike wait anxiously in anticipation during the few preceding months before the holiday season. Two different holidays descending from two different religions / cultures are the major events of this “joyous” time - Christmas and Chanukah. However Christmas is without a doubt the star of these occasions in American popular culture. The flashy holiday inspires billions of dollars to be spent by organizations and consumers alike. The most important aspects of Christmas as portrayed to us by corporate culture involve buying things to help celebrate and to give loved ones presents in order to show them you care. Organizations have seized the opportunity to make lots of money through the traditions of this holiday and have taken those traditions into their own hands by inspiring lots of purchasing during that time through advertising and other means. These messages, as so often happens with corporate influence, have bled into the messages of American folk culture. Celebrating Christmas in the way that we do, and buying gifts for each other have become simply what one does during this time. Children are born into families with parents that cherish their Christmases as a family by providing them with a corporate version of the holiday, just as they often were themselves. Or else, the media and messages floating around child and parent alike have told them how to be. People go as far as to buy expensive extravagant decorations, usually lights and things covered in the holiday’s themed colors. Santa Claus and the mystical story of how his elves create the toys that he delivers to children have been a huge corporate contribution to early childhood fascination with Christmas.

The message being given my corporate, popular culture about Christmas is one that is instilled in people early. So many children these days are brought up in a world where having things and obtaining distracting objects presented as useful are the ways that they can achieve the greatest happiness.

An example of the extent to which many American children value getting things on Christmas can be seen in this video:



Now, we may look at this and think it is hilarious or terrifying or both, some of us may even like hang that little boy off the edge of something high above the ground, but these kids were possibly hopped up on sugar, or just extremely vocal – however their reaction resembles that of the popular view on Christmas that is waffle ironed into children’s minds. I myself was raised with great excitement towards the gifts I would receive on Christmas. I couldn’t wait for that one morning where I would wake up to presents underneath a tree each year. The whole event was great fun – it was intoxicating. Even today I enjoy receiving gifts. To an extent it seems fine to me. It is when people lose sight of other, possibly important things to the overwhelming love for consumption that I believe meaning is diminished. The holiday season in great proportion has become an excuse to make money for those few people up top and this is the major reason that meaninglessness arrives in the typical consumer’s life.

The only reason I can say things in the way that I do, such as the last sentence of the previous paragraph is because of my own biased opinion. (Disclaimer)