Every year, the day after Thanksgiving, it truly becomes the most wonderful time of the year. For some it’s a time to continue sharing with family, enjoy beautiful twinkling lights on trees, eat delicious holiday treats, and listen to the beautiful ring of Holiday music. For most, it’s a time to raid stores for holiday gifts, make lists of family and friends to give gifts too, and spend all of your money on gifts. Gifts, gifts, and more gifts. The holiday season, especially Christmas, has become less of a celebration and ratherma commercial holiday. So where exactly has Christmas gone?
America has become a country that has grown substantially on the idea of consumerism. The bigger the better, the more the merrier, less isn’t more…. more is more. The realization of the matter is that people aren’t aware because most in this generation, especially the millennials, were born into a society that has seen astronomical development. This development is occurring not only in our personal lives but in technology, economy, all matters that affect the world as a whole.
In the past millennia the art of “buying things” has transfigured from buying things that we need, to buying things that we want. Thus leading, to a person that ends up with an elephantine collection of things, half of which will most likely be used once, or in fact never.
Christmas and consumerism go together like wine and cheese, a dreadfully sinful combination. According to reference.com around two billion people worldwide celebrate Christmas. In America alone, 9 out of 10 people celebrate Christmas, both Christians and non-Christians alike. For any smart marketing company, that is an opportunity to take advantage, of both locally and globally. Decorations, foods, products, electronics, virtually anything can be given a holiday spin and sold for much more than it is worth. Although there are postings in every store window showing a storewide discount or savings opportunity, the action of just going into the store and buying is denting our pockets more than anything.
A majority of the items that are purchased during the Christmas/holiday season we don't even need, they are bought to take up space in our lives. The holidays become less of a season of cherishing and more of a season of buying, giving, and spending. This year I experienced this on Christmas, when I was faced with the financial conflict of the holiday. To buy this multitude of items, money is needed, and as of lately that is something that has been short in my life. At first I felt a huge remorse that I could not afford to buy extravagant gifts for my friends and family as I have done in years past. Christmas shopping became both tiresome and stressful and as my first Christmas as an “adult,” I began to question whether or not it all was worth it. The holiday came rather quickly, which I then realized was completely my doing because I got lost in the Christmas consumerism.
I made the executive decision to take something out of the holidays this year, and also to impact my everyday life. In future holiday seasons, I will not lose sight of what is important, that being spending time with my friends and family, rather than shopping for useless trinkets that will break my bank and make no one happy. The answer to all of this madness is to realize what is important. Less is definitely more, and although this may be hard to see, you have to assess whether or not the things you possess bring you joy, or if life is what brings you joy.
