With the Holiday season blowing up all around us, it seems like the only commercials we are seeing on TV right about now is a commercial advertising a TV, Xbox, or new toy for some percentage of the price taken off. This shopping-plagued season even rolls over into the last major Holiday, with Black Friday happening right after Thanksgiving. I’m sure we’ve all seen the Charlie Brown Christmas movie, in which the kids learn valuable lessons from a misfit tree about tolerance, and learn from the play about the true meaning of Christmas.

So what about this “true meaning of Christmas”, you may ask? Well, the whole reason we celebrate Christmas is the birth of Jesus Christ. Say what you want about religion, Jesus was a historical figure, and was worshiped by many. In fact, the name Christmas comes from Christ’s name itself, which is why the abbreviation “X-mas” is technically incorrect. Although that abbreviation is rarely ever used, the fact that it even floats around is a blow to the Holiday’s tradition.

Now, let’s talk about the shopping craze that goes down around this time of year. I feel like the demand for Christmas presents really sucks away the Christmas tradition. Many parents are out fighting crowds for the sales on toys and electronics instead of spending Holiday family time at home. While we’re on that topic I just want to say that our local stores effectively turn into a war zone during the entire month of December. During this whole craze, people could get hurt as a result. And it’s not like the Christmas holiday itself gets any better. Any given family gets maybe a good 15-20 minutes of bonding while tearing into presents. After that it’s pretty much the rest of the day of the family playing around whatever they got, not speaking a word. Your younger brother got a pile of new Legos, which he builds in silence. You, admittedly, are messing around with whatever new electronic you had just got, dad is in the garage messing with his new jumbo-sized tool set, and your mother is in the kitchen playing with her new “Egg-Scrambler 3000” or whatever kitchen thingy Billy Mays is advertising on cable for $19.99. Your entire family all sits in silence, playing with their presents, and this is how it goes for most of the day.