the stick, the stone and the puddle

well not quite. it’s astonishing how shallow society has become. it’s just over a month before christmas is here and even if you tried to not be aware of this you couldn’t. the astonishing part is not the fact that at some point we had to be ‘politically’ correct and say ‘happy holidays’ not ‘merry christmas’ as to not insult other nations/religions. no, it’s not about that, even though that’s a subject for another rant soon to be posted. it’s more or less, well more, about the commercialization of a holiday. it’s not about spending time with family, it’s spending time with the family that can give you more gifts.

as soon as november 1 hit stores started to display christmas decorations. christmas sales come into effect in the early days of november and it’s as if nothing else matters. the halloween candy was barely getting sold at incredibly low prices, yet right beside it the christmas coloured candy was already finding its place. the coca cola bottles with big old santa started to make their way onto shelves. lights inside the malls as well as other decorations were already up by the end of the first week of november. starbucks, not to be left undone, placed their holiday roasted beans in every available corner of every shop, as well as the red little bags. commercials have started on tv, and yes christmas movies are on their way as well. outdoor decorations also started to creep in. half way through november and i’m already started to get bored of christmas. only thing i haven’t seen yet are the christmas trees. i’m wondering if this year they’ll be sold as ‘christmas’ or ‘holiday’ trees?

from what i recall christmas occurs on the 25th of december. the trees go up maybe a few days, at most, prior to that and are kept way to long into january. then again, now they go up end of novemeber and come down on the 26th of december, or perhaps depending if the family spent christmas at home or in the bahamas they may come down later that week. the sole purpose of christmas seems to be ‘sales’ ‘sales’ and more ‘sales’. the biggest one coming on the 26th of december, the famous boxing day. well, it used to be boxing day about 10 years ago; now it’s more known as boxing week. so if you didn’t get the present you wanted, you have the chance of waking up way to early on the 26th and go wait in line at your favorite store in order to purchase your desired item at a ‘lower’ price.

this holiday became a simple excuse for merchants to get rid of the overstock from the year, and for society to figure out how to spent what they don’t have on what they don’t need. can’t quite blame the merchants on this one, they’re simply providing a service requested by demand. in the end the root of losing the meaning of christmas has nothing to do with the stores, malls, or corporations, but it lies with society. the demand is provided by society, not tv, not commercials and not sale offers. it’s society that is required to understand that christmas is a bit more about family and not the 52″ plasma on sale at future shop on boxing day that would go great in the tiny 9×9′ living room in yale-town. the blame is on the shoulders of a shallow society, a society that has demanded that christmas should be referred to as ‘holidays’ and it should start on november 1 and end on december 31.