Does the commercialization of the holidays add to or detract from your enjoyment of the holiday season?

Detracts.

In my house we avoid it. All we are doing this year is a tree. At 33 I’m the youngest. I have money and will buy what I need. Same thing goes for everyone else. We will have dinner and look at lights, gifts are irrelevant.

To me there is no holiday without presents, lights, food and the people I love. I am not a Christian. It is how I connect to the “spirit of the season”. The only reason I celebrate this holiday is because of tradition.

no. it’s silly, but i also disagree with those who would completely abolish it because their total cynicism has reduced them to a grumpy humbug mutterer. After all, one can sit on the computer and find a million humanitarian causes to throw a few dollars at, in between face stuffing and present opening. Xmas is an opportunity to be generous.

Noand IMO the marketing of all out holidays has gone too far for a long time now. One of the reasons I avoid TV and don’t bother with reading the paper this time of year. Grosses me out.

I love it all. I enjoy all of the lights and the music and the parties, but I also appreciate, greatly, the idea of giving to the needy and being kind to others and spending time with friends and loved ones.

I am proud to say I have fully overcome any holiday ‘pressures’ and do not subscribe to the commercialism.

I decorate minimally, have a nice little aler of gifts for those I care about and am completely free of any sense of ‘obligation.’

Of course I spent the first 40 years of my life caving to the mandates of family, but no more.

I do it my way now and it is sheer joy to be the captain of my own Christmas ship. ;-)

I like buying for my friends and relatives. Every year I buy toys to donate to a “Toy Bank” for poor children. I don’t mind shopping in that respect. But I don’t like it how stores and companies over-advertise on t.v. and in flyers. I know they are trying to profit from the holiday season, but for me, I just buy what I think the people I love will want, and that’s it. I try not to be influenced by the commercialism. For example, last Christmas, I saw a little boy at a hospital for sick kids open a gift that I had purchased and donated to a Children’s Hospital (Kids With Cancer)—- a big toy dump truck that was filled with dozens of smaller, colorful toy cars. The joy on his litttle face was one of the best things a person can observe during Christmas. It really made me happy. But I didn’t buy the toy truck because of any commercial ad. I did it out of the spirit of giving. And that’s the way it should be. As an adult man now, I don’f find Christmas as “special” or exciting as when I was a kid, but doing things for people, like that little boy with cancer, still makes it fulfilling.

I’m an atheist, that commercialization is my reason for the season. The lights, the trees, the cards, the gift exchanges… that’s what it’s all about for me. If not for that, I wouldn’t celebrate at all.

Aren’t you tired of the relentless commercials for shopping? it’s like whipping a tired horse.

@marinelife I very rarely watch TV or listen to the radio, so I haven’t noticed. Are they really more excessive than usual commercials?

@TheOnlyNeffie Oh, yes.

Exhibit A

Exhibit B

I haven’t seen either of those commercials.

I just spent almost an hour in Macy’s last night looking at decorations and enjoying the whole feel of it. I love the shopping, the decorations, the lights, the presents, the trees, all of that. But of course, I also love the Nativity scene, Christmas Oratorios, Advent wreaths, etc. I consider myself lucky in that I like both the secular and religious aspect of Christmas (my mom is the same way).

oh yeh the commercial and actually the gift giving thing I find pretty awful. I much sooner people just come along and have a drink a chat and hug than shuffle awkwardly around the social etiqutte that looms like a hidden iceberg of doom around gift giving.

What bugs me is the non-stop Christmas music. It starts right after Thanksgiving and is absolutely everywhere, even grocery stores. I have nothing against the songs themselves, but this constant playing really cheapens them.

Detracts. I make it a point to not shop in the stores if I can help it because it’s so insane and irritating to fight crowds for damaged items or sold out/raincheck items. We don’t watch TV or listen to commercial radio so we’re not bombarded with ads, if we did then we might be burned out by now.

@noelleptc

I know what you mean, one of my fav. rock stations I listen to in my car has gone all Xmas songs since Thanksgiving…bah humbug

Some Xmas music is nice, on Christmas, but not for weeks in advance!

Well, growing up we did not celebrate Christmas. Christmas day was theh boringist day of the year. All of my friends were home with their families with gifts from santa, which I did not get. School was closed, hell everything was closed. Boring. However, every Christmas season we did go to see the Nutcracker Suite at Lincoln Center, I loved it, but it did not even really register with me that it was about Christmas time. I always wanted a tree, but my parents wouldn’t have one. Although, they were happy to go to Christmas parties and tree trimming parties, and liked Christmas music.

As a teen I dated a guy who celebrated Christmas, and I found buying gifts for everyone stressful, and receiving gifts stressful also. Epecially how they did it, one at a time, each person in the family opened their gifts, with all eyes on the person.

Finally as I got older I began to enjoy Christmas more. I was working in retail and loved to watch the decorations go up, and the bustle in the stores. But, it is also a time of year that sucks the life out of you when you work retail. Completely exhausting.

To sum up, the commercialization of Christmas is kind of what helped me understand the Christmas spirit, working in the stores, and being around a lot of people in the Christmas frame of mind. But, I have to say that I think it completely takes away from what Christmas is really supposed to be, celebrating the birth of Christ. If you really make me choose, I think Christmas should be a religious holiday, without emphasis on gift giving. I understand that Russians do their gift giving on New Years. I like that idea. Chanukah became a gift giving holiday to compete with Christmas, I think the commercialization detracts from the religion and the tradition. Meanwhile, I am not religious, or Christian, so why should I really care.

I no longer engage in real-life shopping between end of November and end of December. I prefer mouse clicks while listening to great music.

Not really, don’t care either way. But it sure is ironic when people who are obsessed with the frivolous think their holidays aren’t.