How would you feel about Christmas if there were absolutely no gifts at all? That may sound like a very strange question, but I think that it is a very important one, because the truth is that our biggest holiday of the year by far is all about materialism. According to ABC News, the average American will shell out $700 for Christmas presents in 2018, and the National Retail Federation is projecting that total Christmas spending will surpass $465,000,000,000. Only 25 countries on the entire planet have a GDP that is greater than that number. Ultimately, Christmas is defined by what we give and what we get, but is that actually healthy? (Read More...)
Materialism
100 Year Old Christmas List From A 7 Year Old Boy Shows How Materialistic Our Society Has Become
If there were no presents at all, would you still want to celebrate Christmas? 100 years ago, a little seven-year-old boy named Homer Mellen sent Santa Claus a letter asking for “a box of paints, also a nine cent reader, and a school bag to put them in.” And he added that if Santa happened to have “any nuts, or candy, or toys to spare” that he would love to have some. My, how times have changed. Today, nearly all of us expect to be showered with presents on Christmas morning, and then almost immediately people begin posting photos of their “Christmas loot” on social media websites such as Facebook. And as you will see below, the “Rich Kids of Instagram” have taken boasting about wealth to an extreme that nobody has ever seen before. Our society has become deeply, deeply materialistic, and whatever “meaning” Christmas once may have had has become almost completely lost at this point. (Read More...)