As we enter this holiday season we’re once again being bombarded with advertisements upon advertisements promoting sales, deals, and more between November 24th and December 25th (with some even extending past that into “New Years Savings” as well). It’s Christmas time again, which means it’s time to buy gifts to hold over your friends and family until next year's sales start up. But why do we do this? What has spurred us to spend this holiday and others like it not with those close to us, but in a department store? The short answer is capitalism, but the long answer is filled with savings, sweets, and more so let’s take a journey and discover when the switch was flipped from “sentimental” to “70% off”. Almost all cultural holidays have
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Now what makes Christmas the worst offender? Well dear child, the spirit of Christmas used to be about spending time with family and loved ones and also celebrating the birth of a magic baby. And while it’s sort of stayed along that same vein, you now have to present all of that family with personal gifts, which can also be bought at a Macy’s conveniently near you. Do you understand the problem now? While the Christmas we know now isn’t necessarily malicious, it has very much drifted from the original connotation and meaning. While the holiday has been celebrated for two millennia now, it wasn’t until the 19th century when Christmas was both revived but also turned into a federal holiday (History). This meant that it was recognized across the country instead of just in Christian communities. That didn’t mean that everybody had …show more content…
These are holidays that have been created with the sole purpose to sell more tacky junk in between bigger holidays, and they’re the inherent problem with the commercialization of holidays. It’s holidays like “Father’s Day” or the lesser known “Sweetest Day”, a Cleveland, Ohio based effort by confectionary companies to sell more candy, that are tarnishing the importance of other holidays around it. It was invented in the early 20th century to try to boost sales, and while it isn’t federally recognized nationwide, it’s spreading to states like Florida though with mixed reactions. Most Floridians themselves have “never heard of [Sweetest Day]”(Tampa Bay Times), but nonetheless it has been instituted as a holiday there just for the purpose of increasing
Now what makes Christmas the worst offender? Well dear child, the spirit of Christmas used to be about spending time with family and loved ones and also celebrating the birth of a magic baby. And while it’s sort of stayed along that same vein, you now have to present all of that family with personal gifts, which can also be bought at a Macy’s conveniently near you. Do you understand the problem now? While the Christmas we know now isn’t necessarily malicious, it has very much drifted from the original connotation and meaning. While the holiday has been celebrated for two millennia now, it wasn’t until the 19th century when Christmas was both revived but also turned into a federal holiday (History). This meant that it was recognized across the country instead of just in Christian communities. That didn’t mean that everybody had …show more content…
These are holidays that have been created with the sole purpose to sell more tacky junk in between bigger holidays, and they’re the inherent problem with the commercialization of holidays. It’s holidays like “Father’s Day” or the lesser known “Sweetest Day”, a Cleveland, Ohio based effort by confectionary companies to sell more candy, that are tarnishing the importance of other holidays around it. It was invented in the early 20th century to try to boost sales, and while it isn’t federally recognized nationwide, it’s spreading to states like Florida though with mixed reactions. Most Floridians themselves have “never heard of [Sweetest Day]”(Tampa Bay Times), but nonetheless it has been instituted as a holiday there just for the purpose of increasing