Posted by
Michael Kleen on Tuesday, July 29, 2008 4:36:22 PM
Christmas is in the air--at least in the bowels of our national retailers. As I perused the museum of popular culture (Wal-mart) recently, I discovered that as of October 20th Halloween items were on clearance and store associates were erecting artificial Christmas trees. Thanksgiving seems to have gotten lost in the transition.
As I gazed at the product display, I wondered at what point Christmas became less about eating a ham with your family near the warmth of a crackling fire and more about trampling someone for a $30 DVD player.
Bill O’Reilly speaks of a “war on Christmas” as if the commercialization of the holiday is a recent phenomenon. The “war on Christmas” has been going on ever since someone decided to link the idea of American progress and happiness with orgiastic spending and greed. But it is not an atheistic conspiracy to wipe Jesus from the culture that is behind this phenomenon?it is the breakdown of tradition and the crumbling of the
gemeinschaft; a deeply rooted, organic sense of community.
In our technocratic age, when social alienation has become an art form and everything is available at the swipe of a plastic card, the satisfaction of the desire for possessions overcomes the desire for a sense of social acceptance or the strengthening of familial ties.
In many areas of the country the celebration of holidays like Halloween, Thanksgiving, and Christmas have moved from public spaces into places where merchandise is bought and where merchandise is consumed. On Halloween, for example, I see more decorations inside of stores than outside of houses. Parents today drive their children from house to house, walk them to the door and then bring them home to feast on their rewards. Gone are the days when large groups wandered the neighborhood, collectively engaged in the holiday.
Likewise, Santa Claus is more often identified with a trip to the mall than a parade or a surprise visit at home. Surrounded by piles of toys and glittering lights, he lures the children in so that their parents will buy?buy?buy.
It goes without saying that certain aspects of these holidays will always be about consumption. It would be difficult (and not very fun) to celebrate them without any of the accoutrements, but to make profit the sum total of the holiday is a travesty.
All holidays, everywhere, are fundamentally about forging and solidifying social bonds. They are about shared traditions and cultural experience. They give the community a common identity.
But these fundamentals are endangered when holidays become just one more means to an end: $$.
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