It is December of 1915, when the phrase ‘apple’ was solely designated to a fruit. Kids rocking back and forth on wooden horses; Christmas lights dangling off of roof tops, lifting spirits.
Despite all that has gone right and wrong in the past 100 years, Christmas has remained consistent for the majority of Americans. Lights prevail as a storied tradition, on top of ornaments, trees, stockings, and more, that can be rattled off in no time.
But not everything has remained the same. Can we still label Christmas as the season of giving, when the season of giving is now the season of getting?
Each year, it seems like the newest toy has the ability to sway an entire base of children into desperation of hope that Saint Nick will soon answer their prayers. And we’ve seen quite the variety from Santa and his astute elves. From the always handy garments, which, in fact, is every child’s nightmare between the ages of 5 and 12, to one of the newest high tech appearances, the Apple Watch.
All else aside, what has happened to the days of the rocking horse? These days, Santa has to put his elves through a 20-hour course just so they can start developing Apple’s products! It’s blasphemy. We look around us, and children as young as three and four can’t stay silent unless they have an iPad Air attached their hip. As recently as 10 years ago, the painless teddy bear could relate to that truth.
So we look at where we have come. In 1915, the Christmas bestsellers included nuts, candy, toy trains, and rocking horses. In 2015, bestsellers include Droids, iPhones, and the Meccano MeccaNoid Personal Robot, which sound like the cousins of 1977 Star Wars character R2-D2. Let’s just hope Mr. MeccaNoid doesn’t take our jobs any time soon.
In the span of a century, when it comes to gifts and Christmas' foundational spirit, the differences are blatantly obvious. However, it only makes us wonder, what in the world will 2115 hold? The likelihood is that neither of us will find that out. Let’s just consider ourselves lucky.
Happy Holidays.
