Materialistic holidays are swallowing us

Christmas' effect on pocketbooks can be enough to reduce the good cheer. Like many wholesome traditions, people have found a way to slap a price sticker on the holidays. Every winter celebration will share the common thread, not of purporting religious and cultural motifs, not even of spending extra time with the people we're stuck with. The running trend weaving around Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Winter Solstice is the price tag.

Evidently bringing good tidings to the kin is synonymous with the sound "cha-ching." Christmas may not be the birth of commercialism, but it does make the birth of Christ seem an insignificant second with the overshadowing Santa Claus.

The engendered marketing tool that is Santa Claus has outweighed (pun completely intended) and simultaneously encompassed the entire value of Christmas. Even other messages of goodwill toward man, altruism, and peace have been relegated to lyrics in songs.

Showing appreciation is costing more every year as spending decks the halls. The fact that we are in a recession means nothing to marketers or consumers. Hordes of shoppers will continue to mob stores for the hottest toy of the year, which isn't T.M.X. Elmo (Zhu Zhu pets, battery operated hamsters "without the mess" have effectively shunted their plushy nemesis into the bargain bin).

Not giving a gift is equated to not caring. Not giving something expensive enough or even the right present is out of the question. The "spirit" of Christmas only seems to last as long as it takes to unwrap the presents under the tree. The irrevocable cycle of more is more continues to grow, leaving behind just the remnants of tinsel and wrapping paper in the aftermath.

Christmas isn't even the real problem. It's every holiday that gets the rap of consumer sales. Thanksgiving was once one of the least materialistic holidays. Family and friends gathered to dine on a sumptuous feast and watched a football game. But since the day itself did not center on gift giving, the day after would have to make up for the loss of sales. Black Friday came into being as a way to let consumers get a jump-start on holiday shopping with the fun of doing it in the wee hours of the morning, in massive lines, and dogged by the fine print of in-store rebate guidelines.

While every day should be a celebration of family, it's bad enough that a specified day is needed as a reminder. Does that day have to be attached to excessive materialism as well?

Understandably children will not easily realize the fallacy of holidays centering on materialism. Christmas is a holiday for children, and they do deserve to believe in innocence and unwrap presents. A healthy dose of reality concerning how much shoppers should support the marketing industry and pour forth their life savings in pursuit of recognition and contentment would be enough.

Christmas is somewhat depressing because it juxtaposes actuality and values. It highlights the discrepancy between one day and three hundred sixty-five days.

Perhaps in the midst of the holiday blues, a switch to Seinfeld's Festivus might be in order. Gathering round the aluminum pole swapping grievances would be trade upward from the glossy pretense that holidays have become.