Is Christmas Too Commercialized?

Christmas is the time of year when the biggest sales go on. Stores compete with each other to get the rushes of shoppers in the holiday season. Then after the holiday has gone by, stores try to get sales on whatever they can before the year ends, so called, Boxing Day. People are no longer lively in the streets and never are there kind words said between two strangers, but it is an obsession of gift getting and giving going on in the holiday that takes over the true meanings of spirit and peace.

For large chain stores, it is all about the shoppers spending their money on all the useless items they sell at Christmas. Every year, retailers and suppliers look for more and more ways to come up with things to attract consumers to buy more decorations, lights, ornaments, and anything that will have a related Christmas theme and will sell.

What happened to the true spirit of the season, harmony and kindness toward others? Long gone are the days of planning, anticipation and secrecy to make that perfect gift for your loved one. Stockings that are knitted, woven baskets with a fresh baked loaf of bread and a jar of homemade jam for your neighbours are no longer existent.

We work hard throughout the year to guarantee a good Christmas. When children ask for something which exceeds the budget, parents will say, "Ask Santa Claus," as if the merry old elf's greed is by some means tolerable. When we purchase a new home, the first question asked is, "Where will the Christmas tree go?" Christmas is always on our minds.

In Romania, it was tradition to put up the tree on Christmas Eve. Over time, we have done so earlier and earlier, in order to be prepared. We have now given ourselves more time and more of an excuse to get and give more presents.

In previous generations, gifts and food were homemade. Christmas was a year round endeavour, everything from scratch. The difference today is, we can see the preparations happening but we are not secretly knitting, sewing, building and crafting our gifts and holiday accouterments but buying already made items.

It all seemed much simpler then in comparison to the stress, tension and competitiveness in our contemporary holiday celebrations. We stress as we bend head-over-heels for the wants and desires of our children, family members and friends. We stress, as we look forward to the family's holiday get-togethers or the office Christmas parties to getting gifts we do not really need. It has been a continuing process accelerated by the media (that runs our lives anyways,) that feeds our need and desire for possessions.

Stroll through any store the day after Halloween and you will find Christmas displays emerging. Drive through any village, town or city the weekend after Thanksgiving to see the neighbourhood competitions of light shows on the lawns across the country. Shoppers line up outside department stores at three in the morning waiting to grab the hottest gadgets from the shelves pushing, shoving and cursing their fellow-shoppers.  Along the road of Christmas expansion, we seem to have lost the true meaning of Christmas, and have gotten so far, it is not appropriate to even call it that name any longer.

Whether we are struggling economically or not, we need to understand what is really  important in our lives, especially during the holiday season. The commercialization of Christmas has been on the rise for years and continues to get worse. It is our responsibility as the new generation, leaders to get back to basics and end the craziness and growing commercialization of the holiday season.

In many ways Christmas, like other international occasions such as Easter, Valentine’s Day, Mothers/Fathers day and others have become very commercial, it would appear to be all about buying gifts, flowers, chocolates and god knows what else. Children make huge long lists with the average child’s list reaching a staggering 15 or more items. Christmas is acknowledged as the season of loving and giving. Santa Claus is the focal point and with children thinking they have their parents and “Santa” shopping for them, they make their lists even longer and get even greedier over the years.

I fear we are become blinded by the exchanging of the gifts then the real meaning of the holidays. Christmas, as other holidays are not just about gifts, it is about family and being with the ones you love and spending quality time together. Yes, Christmas will be filled with movies seen a million times and we are all going to eat far too much food and feel very sick on Christmas night. However, instead of hastening out or surfing the net for those ‘special gifts’ why not consider making something from your heart instead of from your wallet.

Christmas has become excessively commercial, but it can be changed. It all starts with small steps, small changes. In the future we should always remember the true meaning of the Holidays, and push others to remember too. Before you realise it, Christmas will start to mean more than the latest tech gadget or toy. It will once again come to stand for love and the spirit of giving.

The Internet and our Brain

The internet has many effects on our brains and  yet is both a blessing and a curse. It is easy and helpful when you are in a rush and need quick directions to someone’s home. However, in school or major righting and information necessary  internet is taking a toll on our skills in research, focus and many others.

Finding info these days is too easy, we are not improving our research skills but quite the opposite. In previous generations, one would have to go to a library or other area to get information. One would have to search in countless books and got to countless places to get just a small amount of what we can get in a matter of minutes off the web. Now, when searching for information, we go straight to Google without even thinking about looking in encyclopaedias, dictionaries or other references. We go to the easiest and most comfortable way to find info, Google. We just type in a key word and there are hundreds of pages at our disposal. Hundreds of pages that would take months to find in a primary source search.

It is helpful to have things at the click of a mouse and not have to think twice about the info. However, truth be told not all things on the Internet are true. With the right knowledge, anyone can create your own website where people get information. Really who knows if the info is true? That is the problem, it is a very tricky thing to know what cites are trustworthy and which are not. Whomever that set up that cite can put any information into it without  many knowing any better. For example Wikipedia is one of the most used cites on the web because of its abundance of information. what people don’t know is it is a free encyclopaedia that anyone can edit. This means that the information could be made up and fictional but is still posted. Just because it is on the web does not mean it is true.

There is a fine difference between how people read when reading books or articles on the internet, verses in print. When you are reading a book or article in print there are no distractions, at least less then on the computer.  When reading on the web people get distracted by the mouse, the key board there, and having something to touch and play around with. They can type in different websites and click on different things, but it usually gets them very distracted and off topic on what they’re supposed to be doing.  The physical aspect of the reading is very different but so are the  many options. When on the computer there are so many choices of  things to do such as, Facebook , email and YouTube . While sitting and reading in print it is much easier to stay focused.  

Another  difference Google has on people is the way their  brains read and think.  Many important experts even admit that they have become used to to the internet articles and can no longer read long novels or long articles in print. They claim after a certain point of time they get bored and try to find something else to do. Many have stopped reading altogether. This is such a phenomenon because even English majors and people who have devoted their lives to the Language Arts have given up them because they have almost totally lost the ability to read and absorb a longish article print.

The issue of not being able to focus and read long pieces of writing is not only dealing with print articles but also on the web to. We are prone to skimming and scanning for pieces of information that could be of use to us that we do not even take the time to read the whole article and understand its meaning. We merely seek convenience and ignore what reading was previously about. Reading was a way for us to challenge our minds in literature and prose but now it is just an insult to its previous purpose.

The internet is taking a toll in our lives.  We have become lazier and no longer use our brain as we used to. We try and find the easy way out of everything and have lost many skills we used to have in reference, concentration and many more. We must learn to enjoy literature as we used to, before all is lost and it is too late.