Where’s Christmas?
December 5, 2007
Jolene Hildebrand
Something about the traditional Christmas creates a distinctive seasonal feeling. Yet the holiday memories we treasure are easily hyped and distorted by obsessive shopping and hopeless expectations. We end up putting a barcode on sincere memories by trying to reproduce the same feelings every year through consumerism. Despite the sincerity of our love and appreciation for the season, holiday rituals become mere imitations of our overwhelming expectations. The holidays get bigger every year, and the values we waste on superficial sentimentality end up devoid of any worth.
Christmas becomes easily corrupted when we consider how easy it is for companies to cash in on marketing holiday sentimentality. Stores overwhelm us with things made to sell feelings and emotions; we all desire the perfect Christmas for ourselves, but also for those we love. The quest for the perfect gift can become a consuming search for the thing that will bring joy to our loved ones and also reflect our own unique expression for them. Often, the sentiment behind our giving becomes more about us than anything else. Not only does this search often turn into an obsessive hunt, but it ruins the original sentiment of love by turning it into a selfish expectation - hoping that your money and time will be well spent and deservedly appreciated.
It’s not to say that something bought doesn’t mean it has no meaning. There are many times when buying something unique and special does reflect an act of appreciation and a gift of love. However, it matters on what we stake our expectations of the perfect holiday on. If we choose to allow the shopping malls to determine our desires, then we will end up seriously disappointed. Not every Christmas is perfect, and along with the high expectations there is also disappointment.
The very act of giving on Christmas is a symbol of the ultimate gift received by humanity - the Incarnation. This symbol of giving reveals our appreciation for the people we love. However, buying into the commercial ideal of buying the perfect thing only reveals an insecure desire to duplicate authentic emotions. Our sincerity should not be dependent on giving the best gift, but on choosing a beautiful way to show our love for someone.
Christmas, as with most other holidays, does have an authentic meaning to celebrate. However, projecting the wrong values onto experiences and memories can turn them into rituals of self-centeredness and remove meaning altogether. What results is an impoverished version of what we want Christmas to mean.
The corporate world has found an easy way to tap into the consumers emotions and desires - stores go the extra mile to evoke semtimental Christmas decorations. Even the political controversy over the name of Christmas has scandalized the religious community because stores take sides over advertising “Christmas” or “the Holidays” in order ot draw the most customers. Ultimately, the commercialization of the holidays has resulted in a bloated consumerist version of Christmas that resembles nothing of what it should be.
There are many elements to Christmas that deserve to be cherished. Memories of family gatherings that warm us with their authenticity and love, moments of reverence that remind us of the beauty of the Incarnation; and feelings of contentment from a simple cup of apple cider after walking in the muffled stillness of falling snow. There is nothing inauthentic about these pleasures. The Christmas season is capable of such beauty that we can’t help but look forward to it all year round and anticipate it with such joy.
Now you go...
Got something to say?