Is Christmas Lost Its Significance?

Christmas, the pinnacle of every holiday and the one day in the year where families gather around, exchange gifts, and honor the birth God's son. This would be the meaning of Christmas for most families but... my family's another story. You see, my cousins make a trip from Texas to North Dakota to visit us for Christmas every year. I know what you're

Christmas like Thanksgiving believe it or not, do happen to share many traits. One major factor that the two own is the warmth and love of bringing family and close friends together. It’s the few times a year that everyone has a reason to all gather around to

With the wreaths and Yule logs that come standard with this holiday comes a caring from deep in the hearts of people unbeknownst to them at any other time of the year. At the sight of the Christmas decor and the flames roaring at the hearth, a warmth envelops the heart, one with which no flame, however hot, could compete. We see in our gift-wrap and our greeting cards and our holiday stockings an entirely new persona occupying this world we live in, reprieving us from the daily heartaches we all know as familiar.

“Bah! Humbug!” (Dickens, Page2) Is what Ebenezer scrooge has to say about Christmas. Scrooge was a rich miser who hisses to everyone he meets, Giving off a miserable eerie feeling to others. Written by the Famous novelist Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol, is a Well Known christmas story about The greedy, ungrateful, lonely man who doesn't Enjoy the activities of christmas. In the past few weeks we read the play as well as watched the 1984 Movie Of A Christmas Carol.

There is no doubt that Christmas is a religious event but nowadays Christmas becomes more commercialized, as it has been defined as a high consumption season because the gifts giving culture becomes the most important part of Christmas and the consumers want to please their children

According to the American Heritage College Dictionary the word Christmas is defined as “the annual festival of the Christian church commemorating the birth of Jesus: celebrated on December 25 and now generally observed as a legal holiday and an occasion for exchanging gifts.” When one thinks of Christmas they may think of Santa, elves, Jesus, and Christmas music. One such as Scrooge, who hates Christmas and is greedy. However one English author reminds readers Christmas can be found in the most dark people. Charles dickens’s A Christmas Carol helps readers identify the negative effects of greed.

As we approach the holiday season, we occasionally lose sight of the true meaning of Christmas while on getting a steal on our favorite pair of boots. Christmas is a time for honoring Jesus and giving. For my community service activity, I helped my grandmother decorate her house for Christmas on December 20th.

The commercialization of the holiday, however, came to be with the arrival of German immigrants. They brought with them the idea of Santa Claus, the Christmas Trees, and the Easter Bunny(Chicchi par.6). Think of how different Americans would be if only Christians celebrated Christmas, and Santa Claus was not a part of the holiday. All of the ads and commercials around this time of year would be drastically different, as well as our literature. All of the books that spur children’s imagination about elves and the North Pole would be lost.

No matter how old I get, I still can’t sleep on Christmas Eve. As a child, my brother and I would be ushered off to bed early, just to lie there with heavy eyes. We would try so hard to catch a glimpse of Santa Claus. Growing up we are all imprinted with the idea of a portly man in a red suit coming down our chimney to deposit gifts under our tree; that is, if you made the nice list. This ideology is a hundred and fifty year old tradition that encourages a child to believe in a fabricated being in exchange for a reward. As much as our parents try to shelter us from the truth, it is inevitable that we will discover that our beloved Santa is nothing more than a fable. As a child our naivety is attributed to our innocence, but as adults, there is a myriad of information out there for the taking.

Christmas As times changed in the 1800s’ of England, Christmas provided as an anchor to bring familiarity and joy into the lives of people. Christmas had become a festival based off of family and friendship, with charity towards others. Though deceiving, religion was not actually the strongest element of the holiday. Christmas began to develope this way, because of the Victorians stage, and the Medieval periods.

Dreams of a White Christmas Without a doubt, Santa Claus is one of America’s, if not the world’s, most iconic figures. A symbol of the secular West’s religion of consumerism, Santa Claus and his twelve reindeer have hijacked the holiday dedicated to the birth of Jesus Christ, and replaced it with the gospel of spending. As both a cultural icon and the patron saint of capitalism, the depiction of Santa Claus in recent years has been seriously debated. While today he is near universally depicted as a portly old man, in a red and white suit and with a long, white beard, some argue that Santa’s image should reflect the changing demographics of the American public. Last year, a national debate ensued after author Aisha Harris wrote for Slate

“I mean ‘Jingle Bells.’ You know, Santa Claus and ho-ho-ho, and mistletoe and presents to pretty girls.” In A Charlie Brown Christmas, Lucy Van Pelt perfectly outlined the modern American Christmas. But Christmas hasn't always been about reindeer and boughs of holly and Mariah Carey. Before the 16th century, Christmas was not a particularly festive holiday; in fact it more of a holy time to pray. However, when the Tudor Dynasty was established in the late 1400s, the various monarchs over the years created and made popular new Christmas traditions, most of which are still present every December. The Tudor Dynasty truly evolved the path of Christmas by popularizing and developing traditions, specifically Father Christmas and the popular carol “The First Noel”.

Ah, December. It’s time to go out and pick out a tree, bring it home, discover it doesn’t fit, return it and pick out another one, take it home and decorate it. It’s time to brave the traffic on the freeway and go to the local malls where normally civil people have turned into grunting barbarians who are on hair triggers. The season is Christmas (or Yule, Hanuka, Kwanzaa, whatever your holiday of choice may be). For many, it’s a time of getting together with family to celebrate. And for some, getting together with family requires travel plans.

As aforementioned, the initial true meaning of Christmas is religion - one that has now been muchly downplayed. Of course at first glance religion is only an important element of Christmas for those who are actually religious, for which then religion plays the dominant role of what Christmas is to them. However, religion means to show obligation to something through faith, it could be argued that the majority of society is actually religious. We follow a society which has

I think Christmas has always been one of my favorite holidays. Maybe because of the special atmosphere that you can feel everywhere, in shops, restaurants , pubs and even streets, where you can hear the magical carols, or maybe it's because of its religious background, but what I can tell you for sure is that I can't think of anything more exciting than the image of the entire family preparing the Christmas Tree or fixing the Christmas dishes.