Christmas. Who doesn’t love christmas? Spending time with family, hot cocoa, putting up the christmas tree, baking cookies…what am I forgetting? Oh yes. The PRESENTS. The consumer culture we live in makes Christmas the most wonderful time of the year, for this one reason – the presents, the shopping, and the spending of your hard earned money. Everything that we’ve known to be associated with Christmas does not come without gifts. Kids traditionally make their christmas wish lists, and as a matter of fact, so do adults. They write letters to that guy who brings them whichever toys they want every year. Regardless of who is buying the presents, Christmas time is all about consumerism.
Every year we are bombarded with the top 10 Christmas gifts. We go out and kill one another to get that last Tickle Me Elmo or that last Xbox 360. Is that really what Christmas is about? Are we really teaching youngsters about giving when the holiday season is sold to us as a time to WANT everything. I don’t think we are. Though there are Toys for Tots programs, and donation bins for sick kids, they are not nearly as much in the limelight as those overpriced Transformers that every kid is asking for. In order to paint an alternative picture to the conspicuous consumption that Christmas is so eloquently adorned with, we need to focus more on giving to those in need, rather than those who merely want. Give toys to the Sick Kids donation bins, Salvation Army, and Toys for Tots this Christmas!
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