Merry (Corporate) Christmas
by Matt Grantz, Assistant Editor
December 19, 2011

“It’s the most wonderful time of the year” says a famous song of the same name about Christmas. But is Christmas really that wonderful? Or is Christmas simply the greediest and most materialistic time of the year?

Let us first examine the literal definition of Christmas. According to Dictionary.com Christmas is “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.”

So, the Christmas holiday originally started as a celebration of the birth of Jesus and, with the passage of time, has devolved into a time dedicated to the giving of gifts. These gifts were originally meant to be a reminder of the gifts the Magi, or three wise men, gave to Jesus upon his birth.

Think about what happens when you get a Christmas gift now. Do you even think about the three wise men? Do you even remember what gifts the wise men brought? (For the record, the wise men brought gold, frankincense and myrrh. And if you don’t know what frankincense and myrrh are, check Google.)

I’m willing to bet that you don’t think about the wise men or their gifts when you present your own Christmas gifts. I will freely admit that my answers were both no as well. This situation now leaves us with another question: what do we think of when we think of Christmas gift-giving?

When we think of Christmas, we are likely to consider the various presents that we would like to receive and the presents we are going to purchase for other people. When we aren’t thinking about presents, we are determining when we will put up the Christmas tree or Christmas lights, what we shall be eating at our Christmas day feast or when we should tune into ABC Family to watch the best Christmas movies. For the many Americans, Jesus rarely seems to figure into the equation.

I realize that about a quarter of the American population is not Christian and thus won’t care about the birth of Jesus. Even so, why can’t Christmas be a happy season during which we can enjoy special and fun times with family? Why must we be so greedy during Christmas?

I see no reason why we must feed massive amounts of money into greedy corporations whose workers are suffering in sweatshops in some third world country. Our time could better be spent with our families and friends enjoying food and playing games.

However, instead of enjoying the simple things, we do give massive corporations our hard-earned money and we continue to exchange truckloads of gifts. So, consider Christmas in those terms. If Christmas really is the “most wonderful time of the year,” consider who really is enjoying this most wonderful time.