We are a culture of consumers about to begin our hunting season of buy.
As November 28 creeps nearer and as a few crèches, Christmas trees, and candy canes begin to prematurely appear in malls and other shopping areas, we know ’tis the season of sell, sell, sell and buy, buy, buy.
It’s useless to complain. Why should I?
My parents still provide gifts from jolly ol’ St. Nick.
I’ve already begun my own Christmas list, complete only with a piece of the Agrocrag and an Underwood typewriter.
But I feel guilty. Why should I get all these gifts without doing much?
I’m a child no longer. I sometimes wonder when it will end. Actually, dread is a better word.
It’s won’t be for a while because society, with a little help from holiday advertising, have taught my parents well.
The only way they can love me, or properly show they love me, is buy me presents and then buy me some more presents and a few more after that.
The baby-boomers have often been called the “me” generation. The phenomena of Christmas consumerism really started when they were children.
Many of their parents who were children during the depression usually only experienced the muted joys of a near impoverished Christmas and chose to live their childhoods vicariously through their children during the booming economy of the 1950s.
Then the pampered “me” generation grew up and had children.
Showing their children how much they loved them through gifts became a trend, especially after women joined the workforce and felt guilty about leaving Jr. and little Susie at home.
At least Mommy could give Jr. and Susie lots and lots of presents with that extra disposable income the family now had.
Divorce also led to separate sets of gifts.
Mommies and daddies in some families tried to outdo the other, spending as much money as possible to show their children who really loved them the most.
America now has more household debt that ever before, mainly because of rising home mortgages (our houses have to bigger than the Jones’) and consumer credit (if we don’t have the cash, there is always plastic).
With the world becoming increasingly interdependent and America’s educational system generally in the toilet, the country should be worried about the future of America’s economic supremacy.
Christmas too often means hours at the mall rather than reflecting on the birth of a baby boy in Bethlehem.
It may seem trite, but when will America, if we ever will, put Christ back into Christmas?
It’s not supposed to be a secular holiday, but that’s what it now is.
There is nothing wrong with buying people gifts, but it’s when doing so so stresses people out they go insane.
Every year there is a toy that’s hot.
People will stand in line for days to be able to put a Cabbage Patch Kid under a perfectly decorated tree (thanks for the tips, Martha) that Timmy is never allowed to touch much less help decorate.
Mothers are now more concerned about video-taping perfect gift openings rather than actually enjoying watching their children have fun on Christmas. Instead Johnny has to pose a thousand times with a toy he didn’t even want. The box it came in is much more fun. What Kodak moments we now suffer through.
Fights break out over Tickle Me Elmos. Christmas consumerism gets us all.
Perhaps everyone should look at Christmas through the rose-colored glasses of a child this year.
It seems like it would be much more enjoyable.