Colin D. Smith
A very merry Halloween
ack-o-lanterns,
cardboard turkey cutouts and wreaths all lumped into the holiday section of
my favorite drug store: What has our society reduced itself to?
Gone are the days when
holidays actually celebrated a particular event, such as All Saints Day,
the arrival of the pilgrims to the Eastern seaboard and the birth of Jesus
Christ. And while these events are another Viewpoint piece all within
themselves, I shall focus on the larger issue of commercialization of our
celebrations.At what point does a
patriotic, religious or remembrance celebration turn from a public
celebration into a commercial endeavor? At what point are holidays, which
have been staples of numerous ethnic groups for centuries, become a
commodity and lose their respectability and believability?Corporations which
manufacture candies, gifts and holiday paraphernalia may argue that they
are simply making time-honored traditions available to the masses for a
reasonable price -- and a small profit for themselves. Yet they don't seem
to realize the fact that by turning a holiday into a series of easily
purchasable icons, a correlation is drawn, in the minds of those who don't
understand the origin of the event, between icons and particular dates,
rather than a connection to the underlying principles of the event.While it would be foolish
to think that at one time, a profit wasn't made off religious or social
holidays, the greed of different corporations wasn't quite as apparent.Around a decade ago -- when
Ronald Reagan was still president and big bangs in womens' hair was even
bigger business -- family conversations in my house one particular late
November evening, revolved around the fact that Christmas was creeping
further and further forward on the calendar."I remember," my mother
reminisced, "when Christmas decorations wouldn't appear on store shelves
until the first or second week in December. But now these sales and store
decorations appear right after Thanksgiving."What a na•ve time of
holiday bliss, when one celebration of something-or-another would never
overlap with a previous holiday. The case, however, is not so true with
today's economic pressures. Christmas, in particular,
is big business, yet it would be na•ve to think the economics of this
holiday is purely a modern occurrence. According to the National Christmas
Tree Association (www.christree.org), the infamous tree lot, the bane of
vacant lots in cities and suburbia beginning in late November, actually was
started by Mark Carr in 1851.Merry shopping, I
suppose.Perhaps there is something
to be said about the commercialization of our celebrated events. This could
be considered America's way of celebrating holidays. The more money a
holiday makes symbolizes how much the general shopping public respects that
event. Christmas, by far, rakes in the most dough; therefore, our fair
capitalistic nation must be made up mostly of God-fearing Christians who
can show how much they value the holiday through dollar signs.After all, general support
for particular causes is typically demonstrated through donations. The more
money, the more people supposedly support that particular movement. How
democratic. How American.So what can be done to stop
the proliferation of the holiday consumer culture? It is very unlikely
companies will declare, "A gift made by yourself says much more than a
purchased trinket from us." It's simply bad for business. Rather it's "Buy,
borrow, finance; only our widget will show you care."This mentality of shopping
for the sake of showing love directly affects children and their
relationships with their parents. Parents who can't afford to purchase
oodles of gifts, and haven't taken the time to convince their children that
gifts don't equate to love, often find themselves scorned by children who
don't think their parents love them.But to look at this whole
issue from the side of business would tell of a different tale. Kids are
simply a demographic -- much like Gen-Xers and Baby Boomers. They are a
large market with great purchasing power, clout and gullibility. Therefore
it is not difficult to imagine how, if a child sees an advertisement on
television which states that the latest toy is a must-have, they could
perceive this object as a representation of their parents' love. No toy, no
love.Amazing marketing ploy.Yet, only one month to shop
for junior's gift didn't seem to be enough. Sales used to start popping up
after Thanksgiving, then before it. After Halloween and, as a recent
development, before it.Unfortunately this
expansion of the Christmas shopping system only acts to cheapen the
holiday. It is no longer a time of friends, family and the celebration of a
religious figure, but rather a hectic time of frantic shopping and
nerve-racking party attendance.Commercialization, and the
conglomeration of these holidays, have only helped in turning a series of
three very distinct celebrations into one mega-holiday. This corporate
action not only depreciates the value of the holiday as a symbol of God,
country or family, but it also produces false images of what we are
supposed to see and believe, rather than what a holiday truly stands
for.Colin D. Smith is an undeclared junior.