Mauriat Miranda     mjmwired

Christmas Already?

It's quite disturbing how lately many people put up decorations for Halloween. The event is not a holiday and it is only a 2-3 hour event on one day! There's no season involved. In reality people are pretty foolish to fall victim to the massive commercialization of things like Halloween.

So one day after yesterday, I'm coming home and flip the radio stations to listen for the traffic report on the highway. What greeted me? Some Christmas music! And it's not even near Thanksgiving yet. In the Catholic church, the 4 week season before Christmas is known as Advent - and that's merely the preparation for the 3 week Christmas holiday season following December 25th.

Anyways, I don't think that religious technicalities affect how masters of marketing exploit seasonal buying habits. I don't plan to fall victim to it. However, I know America as a whole will.

Posted in: Life,

3 Comments:

  • Jeff Schiller on November 2, 2005 ~ 09:09 AM

    That’s nothing - Costco has had Christmas decorations/products on display for the last 2-3 weeks! I couldn’t believe it. This was a month before U.S. Thanksgiving (which is usually the starting point of the Christmas shopping season). Talk about retail desparation…

    Re Halloween: Sorry but it IS an international secular holiday (by Wikipedia’s definition). If you further read the Wikipedia history behind Halloween, you’ll see that, like Easter and Christmas, it was a pagan ritual “appropriated” by Christianity and given a holy spin. Nonetheless, there’s no denying that it’s a fun holiday for the kids. They love it and that energy incites the parents into participating. It’s not that hard to understand.

    Sure commercialism is depressing, but people can still enjoy the holiday without being so cynical. As for your previous entry: I took my 19-month old kids out in some costumes hand-made by my wife to visit our neighbors. Did my kids ask for it or know what was going on? Of course not, they can barely speak let alone walk! But you know what? The neighbors had a blast seeing our kids dressed up, they took pictures and we chatted, my kids liked the excitement of being in a furry costume, of being out later at night, seeing the lights and the decorations and then later of watching other kids come to our house in costumes. It’s most definitely not about candy (at least at this stage for my kids). These events generate good memories and give us an excuse to visit with people that we don’t visit as often as we might like in today’s busy world. I see nothing wrong with getting into the spirit for those reasons.

  • Mauriat Miranda on November 2, 2005 ~ 12:12 PM

    I usually avoid referring to Wikipedia for other reasons, but the international thing is questionable. I just recently explained to some indians what Halloween means. But on the pagan issue, I know the entire history, but I don’t feel it can be simply compared to something like Christmas or Easter (which as I tried to illustrate were seasons as well).

    I don’t see anything wrong in people wanting to have fun. And within given ages and clearly defined rules (e.g. safety), I think it can be fun and good for people. But experience in the past few years has made it clear to me that other motivations have perverted the potential good nature of the event.

  • Jeff Schiller on November 2, 2005 ~ 01:13 PM

    Funny, I just explained what Halloween is to someone in India this morning over IM at work. I guess in today’s world every holiday except those related to the country could be considered “international”. I know Indians living here who are celebrating Diwali/Deepavali. And as a Canadian and a U.S. resident, I can confirm that Halloween is celebrated internationally ;)

    Anyway, I agree that Halloween is nowhere near the significance of the Easter or Christmas seasons. Furthermore there is no doubt that Halloween, Easter, Valentine’s, Christmas - they’ve all been subverted by commercialism/greed to varying degrees in Western society.