According to the Gallup Survey Network, the average American will spend nine-hundred and nine dollars on Christmas presents this year, up more than two-hundred dollars from ten years ago. What is it that brought this huge raise in how much people are willing to spend on their friends and family during the holiday season? Probably the way that the media showcases Christmas. Walk into any store on the day after Thanksgiving, and besides seeing the entire human population of the world, you'll see the signs. Yes, the signs, with their messages written in big red and green letters, like, “25% off all toasters”, or “Buy one refrigerator, get one half off”. They just make you feel like you must buy that shiny new kitchen appliance for your significant other.
The thing is, these people need to shop. It's an addiction that occurs every winter. They see the ads in the paper, or the commercials, all sending the same message: get more stuff. We see this message everywhere. Think back to that oh so annoying Christmas carol “The Twelve Days of Christmas”. Over those twelve days, this person receives 12 partridges, complete with pear tree, 22 turtle doves, which, just might have been the last 22 of a now extinct species, 30 French hens, 36 calling birds, 40 gold rings, 42 geese-a-laying, 42 swans-a-swimming, 40 maids-a-milking, 36 ladies dancing, 30 lords-a-leaping, 22 pipers piping, and 12 drummers drumming. MSNmoney.com reports that these 364 gifts, if given this year, based on current prices and hourly wages, would sum up to about 78,100 dollars. Now there's one person who can't be satisfied with just one special gift from their true love.
But seriously, while this song might not be meant to be taken literally, it can be used to represent our new view of Christmas quite well. We, like the person in the song, continue to focus more and more on the presents than on spending time with our friends and family during the holidays. We need to shut out the message that the media sends. Then, we must find out what the holidays are really supposed mean, and finally, how we can keep that Christmas spirit going the whole year.
So, what exactly are some of the messages that the media gives us? According to the song, we should all be striving towards the goal of getting more presents than humanly possible. But, most of us don't receive 300 gifts a year. Why don't we look at a Christmas story that is a bit more universal. Think back to the movie, A Charlie Brown Christmas. What was the message there? Basically, it was, “This Christmas pageant will be the best ever if we have the best looking props”. The kids wanted the biggest tree they could possibly get for their program. They focused so much on getting the best material items they could, that they completely forgot about the true meaning of Christmas. Even our favorite blockhead couldn't figure it out without the help of Linus.
And what about the Grinch? That selfish, green, hairy creature, who for some unapparent reason hates big hearts. Why would he want to steal Christmas? What motivation could he possibly have had for committing these unspeakable crimes against humanity? The only possible answer to this is: he wanted it all for himself.
We all know that in the end of both movies, everything eventually works out. But what if you don't watch the whole movie? What messages are you getting then? Only the bad ones. Same thing with “The Twelve Days of Christmas”. Not once does it mention that selfish pig donating any of her gold rings to charity, or even re-gifting one of those lovely French hens. This is the same situation we're put in every year. We only see part of the movie. We tell ourselves every year that, “this will be the year that I put that money in the salvation army bucket”. Yet, we never do it. We conveniently “forget” to think about others, because we get all wrapped up in making Christmas absolutely perfect for ourselves. While we can pass part of the blame to the media, we can blame our selfishness for the rest of our missing Christmas spirit.
Now that we know what has kept us from knowing what Christmas means, we need to find out what it actually does mean. According to Webster's Dictionary, “Christmas is the annual festival of the Christian church commemorating the birth of Jesus, celebrated on December 25 and now generally observed as a legal holiday and an occasion for exchanging gifts.” Yada, Yada, Yada, everyone already knows that. Christmas is so much more than that. There's this feeling that you get that just makes everything peaceful.
