Christmas Sstire Essay, Research Paper
Today’s Christmas is no longer a celebration of Christ
and happiness, but is a celebration of a now fake,
commercialized, overweight Santa Claus. The idea of
eating yet another turkey dinner while watching a
forgettable Disney movie on television brings tears
of pain, not joy, to one’s eyes. The main virtues of
the holidays have gone from an idealistic white
wonderland, to a migraine-causing festival of greed.
The Christmas of the past was once a beautiful
celebration of the birth of Christ. Families would
come together to enjoy the holidays together in a
peaceful, loving environment. Children ran around
in a pine scented home, clamoring over the presents
that Santa had brought the night before. The boys
enjoyed their Legos, G.I. Joes, and the lucky ones
got the most treasured of all gifts, the official Red
Ryder BB Gun. The girls also fussed over their Barbie
dolls and easy bake ovens. Also fathers all over
opened up their garage tools, just waiting to put
it to use and cut off their itching fingers. Money
was no problem back then because even if the family
was struggling, children would appreciate the hard
work and thought put into each gift. At night mothers,
fathers, brothers and sisters would curl beside a
blazing fire and watch a classic Christmas movie called
, “It’s a Wonderful Life”, or the even better
“A Christmas Story”. This is what the true spirit
of Christmas should be.
The Christmas of the present is not what it
used to be. What once was a delightful, Christmas
caroling time is now a chaotic, screaming in
someone’s face nightmare. Relatives avoid each other
for fear of actually reliving bad childhood family
moments. Children still run around the house
clamoring over presents, but not from under a nice
smelling pine tree, but from an aluminum death trap
waiting to fall over and spit out sparks of
electricity. While the children still enjoy this time,
they too have lost all sense of the Christmas spirit.
They throw tantrums and scream and shout over the
Furby or Pokemon doll that they didn’t get. The old
fashioned toys given to them by their ancient
grandmothers and grandfathers would lie virtually
untouched in t
also untouched new puppy. So what if their parents
are having trouble making ends meet, how dare they not
be able to buy them that ridiculously expensive toy?
Geez, work harder moms and dads because ten hour
workdays aren’t enough if the kids can’t get a new
$300 video game system. Sure they won’t play with
it after two weeks, but you should hear them scream
and shout if they don’t have it at all. It is
astounding how annoying children can be, I should
know, I still am one. After the chaos that ensues,
mother and father will separate into different rooms
and brother and sister will crowd around the
television. No, they are not going to watch
“It’s a Wonderful Life”, but either a blow ‘em up
violent version of it where evil elves raid a old
folks home, or another bland Christmas special on
another boring sitcom with Urkel as the guest of
honor. This is what Christmas has now become.
The Christmas of the future still has hope
however. Somehow a solution will be found to bring
back the virtues of the past. Perhaps government
control could help relieve some of the annoyances
of the holiday season. For example, federal mandates
could limit all marketing of the Christmas holiday
to the month of December. This could prevent the
trite marketing ploy of “Christmas in May”,
“Christmas in July”, and of course the . Mandates
could also require big businesses to donate 5-10%
of their net profit towards charity. The consequences
of not following these rules could result in fines of
5-10% of their net profit. Maybe by forcing people
to get into the Christmas spirit, they might begin to
enjoy it.
The true Christmas spirit has not been
totally lost to the endless sea of commercialization
by Hallmark, Disney, and Hollywood. Toys, money, and
media may have replaced the old virtues of happiness,
joy, and love, but as long as even one child is happy,
the spirit still lives on. Santa Claus hasn’t been
completely corrupted yet and until he does, he will
still be the fat, jolly man that kids love. The future
of Christmas may look bleak, however someday society
may sweep aside the pile of past years’ presents and
find the true meaning of the holidays.