Christmas is just around the corner, and to many it means stressful shopping expeditions to the overcrowded mall to get the perfect gifts to make the people in your life happy. When we think of Christmas, we are now exposed to the images of spending money and receiving in return. Movies and TV shows, such as How the Grinch Stole Christmas, Its a Wonderful Life, can teach us the real meaning of this holiday, but do we really think of our impact with living in our consumerism society when buying up the stores?
"The fact that Christmas is at once the greatest religious holy day and the greatest commercial holiday in the Christian world constitutes what Pimlott (1962) calls the paradox of Christmas. The tension produced by this paradox surfaces each Christmas season when the consumer materialism seemingly stimulated by the holiday challenges the non-materialistic values enshrined by Christian theology..."
"...Materialism is construed here as the belief that having possessions is the most important source of satisfaction in life (Belk, 1985)."
Sources: Consumption: critical concepts in the social sciences, Daniel Miller
I am not advocating for the Christian religion, this video just proves that our culture has it's priorities out of touch with the human condition.
