Monetized holiday season
Holidays need to be refocused. America has modernized them and now it’s all about the money. (Images from Vecteezy.com. Illustration by Hanna Olson)
November 14, 2016
America has ruined the holidays
By Elizabeth Casella, Managing Editor
Holidays such as Valentine’s Day, Sweetest Day, St. Patrick’s Day and even Thanksgiving at this point have lost their true meaning. America simply has taken the true meaning of the holidays and has made it about what American’s love best, money.
The true meaning of holidays is lost in the glitz and glam of sales in stores or the pressure of being commercialized. One feels if they don’t participate in the shopping and buying craze that they won’t fit in. In reality refraining from spending and observing the true meaning of actual holidays such as Christmas, Kwanza and Easter would be a much better use of time.
Valentine’s Day is a day originally meant to celebrate fertility as a Pagan festival. Today it is about love and giving their sweetheart chocolates and gifts to show love and compassion. It has become a Hallmark holiday because it simply is about buying those Hallmark cards, chocolates and flowers because the best way to get to the heart of one’s true love is by spending the most amount of money possible. Sweetest Day isn’t even an actual holiday. Chocolate companies created it to make money during the slow season to keep revenue up.
St. Patrick’s Day is a massive holiday to drink the day away and listen to Irish music or celebrate Irish heritage in a beer-induced craze. Originally St. Patrick’s Day was a festival to celebrate and commemorate Saint Patrick. It was a Christian feast day and acknowledges the arrival of Christianity in Ireland and also celebrates the heritage and culture of Ireland in general. The alcohol aspect has become so big due to the Lenten restrictions being lifted for the day. Modern celebrations are criticized for the commercialization and fostering negative stereotypes of the Irish.
Thanksgiving has even slowly become about everything but being thankful because of Black Friday corruption. Black Friday no longer starts on Friday. It starts Thursday around dusk. The Thanksgiving feast has become a lunchtime accord surrounding the TV to watch football instead of a sit down meal to appreciate what everyone is thankful for and family time. Thanksgiving originated as a harvest festival. The Pilgrims had this first harvest in the new world and celebrated the event that Americans commonly call the “First Thanksgiving.” It was a three-day harvest full of prayer to thank God for things such as military victory and the end of drought.
Nowadays the true or original meaning of holidays is lost in the monetized minds of people and driven by the commercialization of companies. Some holidays aren’t even true holidays. National Cookie Day, Sibling Day, Best Friends Day, etc. All of these days have no true religious or historical meaning to be observed they are another excuse to eat, drink or spend money in the greedy eyes of Americans who never truly seem to commercialize the true meaning of the holiday season, which never seems to end.