Who Made Who?

I was asked for more thoughts on a statement I made in my last post. I mentioned that the secularism of Christmas is due to the rampant materialism going on. Now I will type about why I think this.

First, one needs to ask this question. How did a one day religous holiday turn into the month long buying spree we have today? This question is the key to understanding what is really going on.

The "tradition" of giving gifts, as far as my research leads me to believe (my very shallow research by the way, I did not bother to dig too deep), originated fairly recently. Way back in the classical economics days, when most people were farmers, the idea of gift giving on any kind of scale was something only a very few people could indulge in. People were too busy trying to survive, farming is a job that you have to go to every day or else you just might starve. There are no days off - someone has to feed the farm animals and tend the crops every single day.

So we will fast forward a little bit, into Victorian times. During this time there were still a lot of very poor people - but there were also more people who could indulge in gift giving. Of course the kings and lords and earls and dukes of the world could afford more lavish gifts, but you also had a new class of people out there - the middle class. Not exactly old money rich, but not poor either. This new class of people had some disposable income and leisure time. Ships had first class, second class, and steerage. It was the second class people that brought on the change.

It was this time that Saint Nicholas was dug up. The Russian and Greek Orthodox churches ALWAYS held St. Nick in high regards, but the non-orthodox churches did not really make a big deal about the guy. St. Nick, according to church legend, was a wealthy man who became a bishop. He used his family wealth to anonymously give money to families who fell out of wealth so that they could afford to marry their daughters back into wealth - and not have to sell them into prostitution (or worse yet, let them marry some poor person).

So there we go! A perfect excuse to justify a little gift giving. And since the three wise men gave gifts, and St. Nick gave gifts, it was OK to indulge a little on a holy day.

As the idea of gift giving became more and more popular, shop keepers, being in business to make money, began to see some potential. Why not exploit this trend? Why not try to use the holiday as an EXCUSE to get more people to buy more stuff from your shop?

But one problem remained for the retailers. The little problem about December 25th being a religous holiday.

Thus began the "war on Christmas". Stores started to promote non-religous (secular) symbols to create an extended holiday season. Wreaths, trees, stockings, Santa, reindeer, and all that other stuff. And people began to buy more and more stuff every year. So shops promoted the extended holiday season idea more. Non religous songs were invented, and sold to the public. More and more reindeer and fat men in red suits were spotted all over the place. Candy canes. Decorated trees. Elves. More and more non religous symbols, which could be used guilt free to promote the new shopping season.

This brings us to where we are today. People line up on Thanksgiving night to be the first ones at the mall to get those good sale prices. People trample old ladies to get the $20 DVD player at the discount store. Newspapers weigh 50 pounds because of all the sale fliers. Everywhere you look, you see symbols that say "BUY STUFF!".

And it works. People get "festive", or "into the spirit". So they buy more stuff. And the cycle continues.

And the consertives blame the ACLU when people say "happy holidays".

So whose fault is all this stuff? The stores? The people buying all the stuff? Athiests? Purple monsters who live on Saturn's moon Titan?

I say who cares. The season is more fun with all the parties and festiveness and stuff than it would be as a one day religous holiday.