Has Christmas Lost Its Meaning - Research Paper Example

Its time for lights, camera and action! Streets, housing, and commercial buildings are becoming lit with winter decorations; store hours are extended, as they promote individual savings luring more people to shop. Pine trees once scarce to the eye, are now more noticed than ever with ornaments and wrapped gifts underneath. In some places, you might see an aged man with hair, beard white as snow wearing a red jumpsuit and glasses, and as you pass him by, you hear "HO, HO, HO", and now a picture is taken; your child has requested his wishes. In the mean time someone somewhere has now become more sudden; the worries of not having enough money to satisfy loved ones; the thought of not being with friends or family; or simply not having someone for a time of household gathering have led more people in this world to become depressed at such times. All of these events and feelings occur as the most celebrated and commercialized day arrives and that day we call it Christmas; a time that should bring forth joy and remembrance of the birth of Jesus Christ, our savior. The purpose of this paper is to shed light on what Christmas is. It discusses why most people celebrate Christmas and why some do not celebrate. It also analyzes how Santa Claus became of and why the lack of knowledge and commercialization of the holiday have made it lose its meaning. What is Christmas? To everyone, Christmas seems to be different. Some people consider Christmas as a celebration of the Christ’s birthday. To others, Christmas means friendship, love, giving and receiving. Others view it as a time of visiting families and have a huge row. Others take it as a feasting and merriment day or just a well-earned day off work. All these people celebrate Christmas in the way they see as its ‘true meaning. Nevertheless, this emerges from their personal lives and believes. Christmas is celebrated in December, and this is considered the day when Jesus Christ was born. That is what is meant for Christmas to be about; however, it is rapidly declining into consideration of materialism and greed with little Jesus thought (Pendered 1463). However, across the world, there are people who do not celebrate Christmas. One of the reasons is that the group does not have any relationship with Christendom. For instance, they might come from various religions such as Jewish, Hindu or Shinto. Some other individuals observe Christmas as a myth such as agnostics, atheists, secular humanists and freethinkers. Most of us recognize December 25th as the time of Jesus’ birthday but is just a date that is used to commemorate it as it is not known the exact day when Jesus Christ was born. Christmas is considered a pagan holiday, which was adopted many years ago by Christian religions for the importance of celebrating Jesus Christ’s birthday. In the United States, Christmas is more of a cultural celebration instead of a religious one. Business has made this day commercialized in horrible ways to raise theirown revenues. According to Pew Research Center, 51% of Americans celebrate Christmas in a religious view, 32% consider it as a cultural holiday, and 9% see it in both ways. 7% of American do not celebrate Christmas, and about 1% occasionally observe it. This data can be simplified in a table and a graph as shown below. Table 1: Ways of celebrating Christmas Ways of viewing Christmas Percentage (%) Christmas as a religious 51 Christmas as a cultural holiday 32 Christmas as both religious and cultural 9 Do not celebrate 7 Occasional celebration 1 Total 100 Figure 1: ways of celebrating Christmas Pew Research Center (2013) How Santa Claus came Santa Claus origins depend on which the story of a country is chosen and adopted. Santa Claus is a Dutch word “Sinter Klaas”, which means the favorite saint, St. Nicholas. He was said to have died on 6th December, A.D. 342. In many nations, this day is celebrated as St. Nicholas feast and the countries consider this day as the day that he arrived with his presents as well as punishments. Nicholas lived in currently known as Turkey. He is believed to been born in about A.D. 280 in Patras town. He had wealthy parents, and he was well educated. In history, Nicholas is said to have an unusual childhood. At his childhood, he was made the Myra Bishop and due to this reason has been recognized as the Boy Bishop. What made Nicholas renowned was his extreme kindness as well as generosity, which implies that he was most of the time going out at night as he took presents to the needy people. His fame can be traced to two significant legends who are the children of the Inn and the three daughters. Santa Claus, currently known as ‘Father Christmas, came into English Christmas festivities when people were reminded of him from America. The brought a new life to the English Christmas and therefore, was considered the answer to the people who prayed the restoring of the Father Christmas together with his customs. In many countries, Santa Claus is said to be the gift-bringer of Christmas gifts. He was considered to take gifts to the children and mostly to the needy people (Fischer n.p). However, for many years before the period of Santa Claus became well recognized, which is also a situation adopted in many countries today, the child Jesus is said to be the gift-bringer. He is said to have been coming with angels at night hours, whereby he trimmed trees and put the presents underneath the trees. For instance in Spain and other Spanish-speaking nations, the Child Jesus who is known as El Nino Jesus brought gifts for Christmas to the children Holy Night. He was mostly found in the morning in the previously empty crib whereby he arranged all the present that he came within the front of the crib. In Europe, most of the countries had their gift-bringer and was used to represent Santa Claus. Why the lack of knowledge and commercialization of Christmas have made it lose its meaning. As currently observed, the real meaning of Christmas is being lost for the reason that people are placing their thoughts much on the mass rather than on the Christ. People think that Christmas is much of presents, eating more and touring in different locations. Most people across the globe celebrate Christmas as nothing more than getting drunk, buying many gifts and going to parties as much as they can. They do not invite the presence of God, Jesus, and the Nativity into the situation at all. This implies that they do not believe in God, and if they do so, then they forget Him during Christmas holiday and yet they are happy to make use of this day to be much hedonistic. This has also affected and has become a trend to most of the believers (Tynan & McKechnie 237). Christmas is supposed to be Thanksgiving the celebration of the birth of Jesus. Christmas has become too commercial, and shops are taking this benefit by putting sales way before the holiday of December. Greediness has been observed in many children, and most of them do not even have the knowledge as to why people celebrate Christmas. To these young children as well as some of the adults, Christmas is a just a day of receiving as many amounts of goods as possible. Currently, on TV adverts, most of them are being based on receiving goods but they do not insist on the birth of Jesus Christ. They do not tell people it is meant by Christmas day. This has made Christmas lose it real meaning via commercialization. Conclusion Celebrating Christmas by getting drunk, going to parties and getting as many presents as possible and then forget about Jesus is not what God wants to see. In fact, he is not happy at all. This time, people who believe in God should change their ways and the way they behave and think during and about Christmas day. This is the time when Jesus Christ was born, and the significance of Him being born is that He came to take us away from sins. People should bring back the meaning of Christmas as it was before in typical situation. Nevertheless, this should not deter people from attend parties and have presents. They should but first before doing so, should keep in mind that it is Christs birthday. Therefore, they should keep in the first place before the rest activities. Works Cited Fischer, Dominique. Has Santa Claus A Good Long-Term Memory. SSRN Electronic Journal n. pag. Pint . Pendered, L. F. Christmas Presents And Christmas Past. BMJ 323.7327 (2001): 1463-1463. Print . Pew Research Centers Religion & Public Life Project, Celebrating Christmas and the Holidays, and Then And Now. N.p., 2013. Web. 6 Dec. 2015. Tynan, Caroline, and Sally McKechnie. Hedonic Meaning Creation Though Christmas Consumption: A Review And Model. Journal of Customer Behaviour 8.3 (2009): 237-255. Print Www1.cbn.com, How St. Nick Became Santa Claus | CBN.Com (Beta). N.p., 2015. Web. 6 Dec. 2015. Annotated Bibliography Fischer, Dominique. Has Santa Claus A Good Long-Term Memory. SSRN Electronic Journal n. pag. Pint . This article argues that if Santa Claus had a good long-term memory, he would be rewarding people according to how he would have observed them previous years. His presents giving would not depend on what he would have observed from people’s behavior on the present year. Santa Claus, similar to other investors, would have purchased assets that have been performing consistently well in the previous years only if they had good long-term memory. In addition, good behavior would be defined as ‘resilience’. If there were rewards for resilience, therefore, it should translate into higher transaction volumes insuring the survival of the fund. This is how the article defined the effectiveness of Santa Claus on his performance. Pendered, L. F. Christmas Presents And Christmas Past. BMJ 323.7327 (2001): 1463-1463. Print . This article argues that events within December are about patients giving presents to their doctors. The article suggests that this is an issue that has been hidden for long. The author suggests that also doctors should have ways on how to respond to patients after they offer them presents. Nevertheless, there has been nothing done on that section of doctors responding to their patients. The author here talks about patients with chronic illnesses and others who must depend on doctors seeking for their survival. Solutions should be provided on how doctors should also respond to those patients apart from only taking care of their lives. Tynan, Caroline, and Sally McKechnie. Hedonic Meaning Creation Though Christmas Consumption: A Review And Model. Journal of Customer Behaviour 8.3 (2009): 237-255. Print The purpose of this article is to examine the way by which consumers construct hedonic meanings through the family celebration of Christmas. This holiday that is worldwide celebrated by almost everyone, offers a suitable setting for examining hedonic meaning creation in the secular celebration consumption. The research uses two-stage qualitative study of women from British who are led to new insights into the various ways by which they implement social hedonic meanings as they plan, reflect and enact on family-based Christmas consumption activities. Read More