Santa's Coming To Town Research Paper

Santa’s Coming To Town Christmas time, a time usually in connotation with joy, family, milk and cookies, and Christmas classics such as A Charlie Brown’s Christmas and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. As a young boy or girl, everyone has their stories of Santa Claus, from wanting to touch his beard or telling him what you want for Christmas. Christmas has grown into not just celebrating Jesus’ birthday (if that’s what you believe in), but instead as a holiday for lots of gifts. The idea for giving gifts at holidays is not a new concept, but the idea of gift giving has become excessive with advertisements blasting out Black Friday sales and people wanting whatever they can afford. In general, many of us have more than enough items that we do not have full attachment to and actually want and need. What can be a good way to exchange our belongings that are not needed? Maybe a good solution is in sight: A gift economy, an economic system that is and has been proven to be …show more content…
Research has shown that gift economies have been successful in some tribal communities and in China. Mayfair Mei-Hui Yang in The Gift Economy and State Power in China, states that China has practiced their art of “Guanxi” , which literally means “social relationship/connection”. This type of action was put into practice about two into the Cultural Revolution. Yang says that the Guanxi exchange lies “in the skillful mobilization of moral and cultural imperatives such as obligation and reciprocity in pursuit of both diffuse social ends and calculated instrumental ends.” This practice proved to be important for the Chinese society. But according to Yang, people did not use the art of Guanxi for the good of the society as a whole, and that did not sit well with people in power. This argument caused unrest in the community, and so the gift economy was demoted to less