Christian Holidays turned Commercial

[Shu]

I think we have all thought about this, but some time or another you have to come to grips with your budget and your family's (wife son daughter pets) budget. Growing up in a Christian family I know we have 2 main holidays in which we eat till we are stuffed to the brim, and/or spend loads and loads of cash on each other in order to one up the other person's gift.

Christmas being the most detrimental Holiday of the year was designed on the birth of your lord Jesus Christ. The tradition of gift giving was speculated BY CHRISTIANS to have occurred because of the three wise men giving "Gold, Frankensense and Murr [I don't care about spelling for now]) to the "savior."

So the gift giving and the big meals and all this... well it's one big ole dollar amount these days.

So who takes advantage of all this? Well every company that sells a product around the world. These hollidays have turned into HUGE commercialized Holiday in which if I were a Christian, which I'm not, I would be pissed.

For one it drains the meaningfullness of the Holidays. Instead of looking after what the Holiday is truly for.. "the son dying" "or the birth of the son" you look at the gift giving side of it all.

Companies make BANK! and hince the reason they do, they push for the gift buying process earlier and earlier. It used to be the day after Thanksgiving is when I hear about the drastic sales of products, but now I've heard it as early as October. Soon it will be in July when we need to start buying what we want.

What does the mean for you the buyer? Well you gotta start buying when everyone else does, or else the companies will run out of stock on the product you are trying to buy or you won't get the desired sales you want. Say a Xbox360 or Ps3.. well your son/daughter will not receive it..

And what's with the Spoiling the kid bit to no end these days? I mean seriously, whenever I hear a kid wanting a PS3 all they need to do is wear on their parents patience until they give into his/her every whim. It's sick!

Back on topic though.. whenever I hear about Christmas or Easter ... I fawking cringe. I know I'm going to broke for a good 2 months.. because everyone... I mean everyone needs a gift or I'll hear no end to it.

The only reason I remotely like either Holiday is because I get a paid vacation day. That's about it.

I hope you Christians are proud of yourselves.

 

[Ryushikaze]

I think we have all thought about this, but some time or another you have to come to grips with your budget and your family's (wife son daughter pets) budget. Growing up in a Christian family I know we have 2 main holidays in which we eat till we are stuffed to the brim, and/or spend loads and loads of cash on each other in order to one up the other person's gift.

Christmas being the most detrimental Holiday of the year was designed on the birth of your lord Jesus Christ. The tradition of gift giving was speculated BY CHRISTIANS to have occurred because of the three wise men giving "Gold, Frankensense and Murr [I don't care about spelling for now]) to the "savior."

No, various other solstice holiday traditions also had gift giving rituals. Many well predate the official decision to make Christmas a particular day.

So the gift giving and the big meals and all this... well it's one big ole dollar amount these days.

So who takes advantage of all this? Well every company that sells a product around the world. These hollidays have turned into HUGE commercialized Holiday in which if I were a Christian, which I'm not, I would be pissed.

For one it drains the meaningfullness of the Holidays. Instead of looking after what the Holiday is truly for.. "the son dying" "or the birth of the son" you look at the gift giving side of it all.

Companies make BANK! and hince the reason they do, they push for the gift buying process earlier and earlier. It used to be the day after Thanksgiving is when I hear about the drastic sales of products, but now I've heard it as early as October. Soon it will be in July when we need to start buying what we want.

What does the mean for you the buyer? Well you gotta start buying when everyone else does, or else the companies will run out of stock on the product you are trying to buy or you won't get the desired sales you want. Say a Xbox360 or Ps3.. well your son/daughter will not receive it..

And what's with the Spoiling the kid bit to no end these days? I mean seriously, whenever I hear a kid wanting a PS3 all they need to do is wear on their parents patience until they give into his/her every whim. It's sick!

Back on topic though.. whenever I hear about Christmas or Easter ... I fawking cringe. I know I'm going to broke for a good 2 months.. because everyone... I mean everyone needs a gift or I'll hear no end to it.

The only reason I remotely like either Holiday is because I get a paid vacation day. That's about it.

I hope you Christians are proud of yourselves.

See, I grew up christian, and while there are plenty of valid criticisms against the religion and all religions, the overcommercialization criticism is not one that can be laid directly on the religion. Not that christians aren't responsible, but it'd be like holding all muslims responsible for the twin towers, or all christians responsible for Nazi Germany (to pre-empt, yes, he was, they were, and that's not a godwin).

 

[Sora_lion_heart]

100 bucks every B-day sometimes its like D-day

I know what you mean, I get a fear when Xmas comes around. I don't make that much money but everyone in my family don't ask for much. What I hate most is birthdays. People come up to me that i don't really talk tomuch and they say, What are you gonna get me for my birthday? I'm like okay gotta buy a birthday card lol. Cards kick ass.

 

[Mitsuki]

So the gift giving and the big meals and all this... well it's one big ole dollar amount these days.

So who takes advantage of all this? Well every company that sells a product around the world. These hollidays have turned into HUGE commercialized Holiday in which if I were a Christian, which I'm not, I would be pissed.

For one it drains the meaningfullness of the Holidays. Instead of looking after what the Holiday is truly for.. "the son dying" "or the birth of the son" you look at the gift giving side of it all.

Companies make BANK! and hince the reason they do, they push for the gift buying process earlier and earlier. It used to be the day after Thanksgiving is when I hear about the drastic sales of products, but now I've heard it as early as October. Soon it will be in July when we need to start buying what we want.

What does the mean for you the buyer? Well you gotta start buying when everyone else does, or else the companies will run out of stock on the product you are trying to buy or you won't get the desired sales you want. Say a Xbox360 or Ps3.. well your son/daughter will not receive it..

And what's with the Spoiling the kid bit to no end these days? I mean seriously, whenever I hear a kid wanting a PS3 all they need to do is wear on their parents patience until they give into his/her every whim. It's sick!

Back on topic though.. whenever I hear about Christmas or Easter ... I fawking cringe. I know I'm going to broke for a good 2 months.. because everyone... I mean everyone needs a gift or I'll hear no end to it.

The only reason I remotely like either Holiday is because I get a paid vacation day. That's about it

Yes, I do see your point there. It annoys me whenever I see spoiled children getting their way every Christmas and the parents giving in. Or it could be that parents have this urge to get their kids lots of things because the parents are victims of their own "consumerism disease." Especially in the U.S, for the most part the society has been materialized because of the psychological marketing. This is the dark side of psychology - they study the buying habits of consumers and find ways to make a piece of crap look appealing. I think marketing is a dark side to psychology. There's also the ever-so-prevalent "keeping up with the jones' syndrome." Everybody has the crazed "need" to have material items.

For example - Nike. Is Nike that really great of a shoe? Not really - at least I think so anyway. It's not the greatest shoe ever built. But people know how market these shoes and sell them for astronomical mark-ups.

I hope you Christians are proud of yourselves.

Huh? I was on a roll agreeing with you there and this just made me stop abruptly as it seemed to have came out of nowhere. I'm not sure what you mean by this, but I myself am a Christian and I'm hoping that you're not pointing the finger and making the false analogy, hasty generalization, or judging someone based on their religion. Remember, not all people who celebrates Christmas (and take part of the gift-giving event) are Christians and there are various cultures in other religions that have gift-giving ceremonies around the same time-frame and also various time-frames throughout the year.

It's the corporations and feeble-minded society that breaks down to its wants. I mean there's nothing wrong with wanting something, but some people do let it control their lives to a point that they don't care if they trample someone to death during Black Friday. Should we blame that on the Christians as well...? Is it the individual? A highly influenced group? Corporate minds? Or are we all to blame?

The point is, everybody has a choice of how to react to our wants and the lengths we are willing to go through for material desires. The way I view it is, life is ten percent of what I do and ninety-percent of how I react to it. I think a lot of people seem to forget that some of us deem it unnecessary to dive forth into the materialistic abyss that has swept the nation and taken control, Christian and non-Christian.

 

[Shu]

Huh? I was on a roll agreeing with you there and this just made me stop abruptly as it seemed to have came out of nowhere. I'm not sure what you mean by this, but I myself am a Christian and I'm hoping that you're not pointing the finger and making the false analogy, hasty generalization, or judging someone based on their religion. Remember, not all people who celebrates Christmas (and take part of the gift-giving event) are Christians and there are various cultures in other religions that have gift-giving ceremonies around the same time-frame and also various time-frames throughout the year.

It's the corporations and feeble-minded society that breaks down to its wants. I mean there's nothing wrong with wanting something, but some people do let it control their lives to a point that they don't care if they trample someone to death during Black Friday. Should we blame that on the Christians as well...? Is it the individual? A highly influenced group? Corporate minds? Or are we all to blame?

The point is, everybody has a choice of how to react to our wants and the lengths we are willing to go through for material desires. The way I view it is, life is ten percent of what I do and ninety-percent of how I react to it. I think a lot of people seem to forget that some of us deem it unnecessary to dive forth into the materialistic abyss that has swept the nation and taken control, Christian and non-Christian.

That part was just a joking smart ass comment. Trust me a religion has no grips on the over commercialization. I respect each religion to the fullest even those that claim there is No God, so I wouldn't directly bash Christians, since my values sometimes mirror theirs.

Now as far as the companies taking advantage of this Holiday, I really would like to know where this came from. I was watching on TV the other day a man and woman have 18 kids.. Christians.. and they keep planning to have them, it kind of jolted me to see the amount of gifts they would give one another. The thing I did find interesting though is they set a cap on the dollar amount they could spend on one another. As well they valued the actual Birth of Christ more than the actual buying process, so that was something to.. smile on rather. But the 18 kid thing.. kind of seemed a bit crazy but in respecting that family.. to each his own.

Also I'm not an athiest or Agnostic so I'm not one to bash another culture nor religion, but what I find strange is that even at the base level of giving.. Christians go way above the call of duty when it comes to gifts. Let's compare that to the Jewish culture, where they maybe get a dradel a few gimmicks and a sack of golden chocolates.

Also I find it weird that even non christians celebrate christmas.. but not the birth of christ, just the whole "gift giving part." I guess it's just going to turn worse and worse at the years go by. Soon kids will be getting their own trust funds on Christmas to spend a gross amount of cash on themselves. Not only would that sicken me, but the values of "creative" (say you made something like a photo album or designed a shirt or crafted something else) gift giving would be totally busted.

This is what I'm getting at. Christmas to me = ... I'm broke for 2 months.. like I stated before.

 

[Apolyonn]

Christmas being the most detrimental Holiday of the year was designed on the birth of your lord Jesus Christ.

Well technically its origins were all pagan.
http://www.essortment.com/all/christmaspagan_rece.htm

I love Christmas like no other holiday. A lot of it has to do with the decorating. A part of me can't help but find it funny how billions of places nationwide go all-out for this one holiday. The only thing that really preturbs me about the holiday how they managed to bump its celebration up to right after Halloween, knocking Thanksgiving out of the water entirely, which in many regards is a far more togetherly time in my household.

...a sack of golden chocolates.

Almost makes me want to be Jewish. Almost.