Christmas or Retailmas
By Jeremy Gulley
Every year it’s the same thing. People everywhere say that this year they are going to cut back and remember the true meaning of Christmas. Then at midnight on Thanksgiving, people crowd in to Walmart trying to get the perfect present for the lowest price or the lowest priced perfect present. Every year people say they are going to remember the real meaning of Christmas, and every year it is forgotten, cast-away and ignored.
Why do we pretend that Christmas is for anything other than showing off how much money we have, spoiling our children with things they don’t need and taking time out of the year to see how much stress we can endure? For a day set apart to celebrate the coming of the Messiah, it seems we think the best possible way to celebrate is to spend money we don’t have on things we don’t need or want.
I propose that we take Christ completely out of the equation, starting this year – that way there will be no illusion as to the meaning of the holiday. Instead, we’ll call it Retailmas, and Sam Walton will be the representative icon.
By doing this, we’ll remove the unnecessary stress and guilt of trying to fit Christ into a holiday that we have warped into a celebration of our own comfort and affluence.
From now on, when people talk about the meaning of Retailmas, they’ll say, “oh, yeah, the day we spend money to spoil our kids, show off our wealth, put gaudy lights on our houses, and stress out about the little things!” It’s the most wonderful time of the year.
We’ll completely embrace the fact that, while we should be slowing down and enjoying the end of the year, we speed up to try to get everything done. Why do we keep our lists so long and try to fit everything in when we could just shorten our lists?
Retailmas will be a day for us to celebrate us. But we won’t keep it to ourselves. I would urge us to see it as a day where we can show off to our friends, neighbors, and anyone we come into contact with. Instead of, “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays” in our yards, we’ll make signs that read “Hey everyone, look at me, look at me!”
Or . . .
We could cast off the traditions we keep that have nothing to do with the real meaning of Christmas – quit talking about it and actually doing it. We could remember that, even if we aren’t religious and the idea of Christ entering the world as a baby has no significance, taking time to reflect on family and friends, the magic of a new year pending, the chance to reduce stress rather than increasing it, and an excuse to slow down is not a bad way to spend a holiday.
Rather than spending money to make other people richer, why not spend our time making ourselves richer?
I know, every year it’s the same thing.
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Posted by admin
on Dec 8 2010. Filed under Jeremy Gulley, Opinion.
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