by Tami Erickson

Created on: April 04, 2009

What happened to the true spirit of the season, peace on earth and good will toward men? Long gone are the days of planning, anticipation and secrecy to make that perfect gift for your loved one. Wool stockings knitted during the autumn months; a set of carved animals created during the quiet moments after the kids were asleep; woven baskets with a fresh baked loaf of bread and a mason jar filled with homemade jam for your neighbors across the way are no longer. Setting aside personal differences and healing wounds given and received over the year in order to start the new year out with a clean slate are often scoffed at. Where has the thankfulness for reaching the

winter solstice or the spiritual celebration of Christ's birth gone?

It all seemed much simpler then in comparison to the stress, tension and competitiveness in our contemporary holiday celebrations. Blood-pressures rise as we manipulate our budgets to accommodate the wants and desires of our children, family members and friends. Tension thickens as we look forward with dread to the family's holiday get-togethers or the office Christmas party. Shoppers line up outside department stores at three in the morning waiting to grab the hottest gadgets from the shelves; pushing and shoving and cursing their fellow-shoppers.

When did we as a society morph from one of simple gratefulness and spirituality to the competitive and commercialized holiday of today? It's been a gradual process accelerated by retailers and the media that feed our disillusions of the definition of success exacerbated by our need and desire for possessions.

Christmas has become so commercialized in fact that many people dread it. It has caused us to loose sight of the true meaning of the holiday season. Originally a pagan festival to celebrate the winter solstice, and modified by Christians to incorporate religious dogma, it is now the most commercialized holiday in the world. It has become so commercialized that it smothers the magical feelings of the season and pushes us to our breaking points.

What happened to waiting until after Thanksgiving to start the holiday shopping? Stroll through any store the day after Halloween and you will find Christmas displays emerging. Drive through any village, town or city the week-end after Thanksgiving to witness the neighborhood competitions of light shows on the lawns across the country.

Enough is enough! Do we really need that huge expensive gift as a validation of how much we matter in someone's life? No! Do our children really need a roomful of new toys when their closets or the basement is already filled with all the toys they never play with? No!

Whether we are struggling economically or not, we need to take a personal inventory of what's really important in our lives, especially during the holiday season. The commercialization of Christmas has been on the rise for years and continues to get worse. Many of our younger generations have no concept of the true meaning of the Christmas spirit, whether it be the pagan celebration of the solstice or the various religious celebrations of Christ. It's our responsibility as parents, leaders and role models to get back to basics and end the craziness and growing commercialization of the holiday season.

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