True Spirit Of Christmas example essay topic

794 words
Today's Christmas is no longer a celebration of Christ and happiness, but is a celebration of a now fake, commercialized, overweight Santa Claus. The idea of eating yet another turkey dinner while watching a forgettable Disney movie on television brings tears of pain, not joy, to one's eyes. The main virtues of the holidays have gone from an idealistic white wonderland, to a migraine-causing festival of greed. The Christmas of the past was once a beautiful celebration of the birth of Christ.

Families would come together to enjoy the holidays together in a peaceful, loving environment. Children ran around in a pine scented home, clamoring over the presents that Santa had brought the night before. The boys enjoyed their Legos, G.I. Joes, and the lucky ones got the most treasured of all gifts, the official Red Ryder BB Gun. The girls also fussed over their Barbie dolls and easy bake ovens. Also fathers all over opened up their garage tools, just waiting to put it to use and cut off their itching fingers. Money was no problem back then because even if the family was struggling, children would appreciate the hard work and thought put into each gift.

At night mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters would curl beside a blazing fire and watch a classic Christmas movie called, "It's a Wonderful Life", or the even better "A Christmas Story". This is what the true spirit of Christmas should be. The Christmas of the present is not what it used to be. What once was a delightful, Christmas caroling time is now a chaotic, screaming in someone's face nightmare. Relatives avoid each other for fear of actually reliving bad childhood family moments. Children still run around the house clamor in over presents, but not from under a nice smelling pine tree, but from an aluminum death trap waiting to fall over and spit out sparks of electricity.

While the children still enjoy this time, they too have lost all sense of the Christmas spirit. They throw tantrums and scream and shout over the Furby or Pokemon doll that they didn't get. The old fashioned toys given to them by their ancient grandmothers and grandfathers would lie virtually untouched in the corner or as chew toys for their also untouched new puppy. So what if their parents are having trouble making ends meet, how dare they not be able to buy them that ridiculously expensive toy Geez, work harder moms and dads because ten hour workdays aren't enough if the kids can't get a new $300 video game system. Sure they won't play with it after two weeks, but you should hear them scream and shout if they don't have it at all. It is astounding how annoying children can be, I should know, I still am one.

After the chaos that ensues, mother and father will separate into different rooms and brother and sister will crowd around the television. No, they are not going to watch "It's a Wonderful Life", but either a blow 'em up violent version of it where evil elves raid a old folks home, or another bland Christmas special on another boring sitcom with Uriel as the guest of honor. This is what Christmas has now become. The Christmas of the future still has hope however. Somehow a solution will be found to bring back the virtues of the past. Perhaps government control could help relieve some of the annoyances of the holiday season.

For example, federal mandates could limit all marketing of the Christmas holiday to the month of December. This could prevent the trite marketing ploy of "Christmas in May", "Christmas in July", and of course the. Mandates could also require big businesses to donate 5-10% of their net profit towards charity. The consequences of not following these rules could result in fines of 5-10% of their net profit. Maybe by forcing people to get into the Christmas spirit, they might begin to enjoy it. The true Christmas spirit has not been totally lost to the endless sea of commercialization by Hallmark, Disney, and Hollywood.

Toys, money, and media may have replaced the old virtues of happiness, joy, and love, but as long as even one child is happy, the spirit still lives on. Santa Claus hasn't been completely corrupted yet and until he does, he will still be the fat, jolly man that kids love. The future of Christmas may look bleak, however someday society may sweep aside the pile of past years' presents and find the true meaning of the holidays.