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 the corner or as chew toys for their

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.