Tweet

Who could ever imagine walking into a department store in late October and seeing Christmas decorations and apparel already lining the shelves?

Oh….. wait, that already happens.

Even Charlie Brown knows that Christmas is too commercial. Just watch A Charlie Brown Christmas. This movie, produced in 1965, stresses that Christmas has become more about the presents and big businesses making money when Christmas is supposed to be about spending time with your loved ones.

And this is back in 1965!

Think about how much our economy has grown and our technology has advanced. Big businesses are thriving off of the holiday season and it’s no secret.

Just to put it into perspective, over $450 billion dollars are spent in the US during December. The Global Water Crisis is likely to cost about $20 billion to solve. That’s less than 5% of what Americans spend in one holiday shopping period in December.

“I feel like Christmas is way too commercial, man. We put so much money towards gifts when everyone in the world can get water. I feel awful as a person that our money can go towards such a worthwhile cause and it doesn’t,” said junior Jarrett Taneyhill

The amount an average American shopper spends on gift cards, greeting cards, food and candy, flowers, Christmas tree and decorations is $704.18. This amount has dropped in recent years due to the economic downturn, but it still doesn’t take away from the fact that too much money is being spent. You may look at $700 dollars as a small amount but remember, this is all for ONE day. You can pay your cable, phone bills, and car payments and insurance for one whole month with that money, but this is one day only.

The Apple Corporation, a giant business, gets a giant plus during the holiday season. They sold approximately 46.5 million iPhones in the fourth calendar quarter of 2012 and that number is only rising. The average iPhone costs $650 and combined with the amount sold, Apple makes $30 billion on iPhone sales alone just from September through December. The National Institute of Health invests nearly $30.1 billion annually in medical research for the American people. They have about the same amount of money put in, but one is a cell phone and one is medical research to progressively save more lives.

What is Christmas really about though? Our parents taught us that it was the day Baby Jesus was born in a manger in Bethlehem. A day used to celebrate our savior has turned into a day seeing who can receive the best presents.

“I think people lose sight of the true meaning of Christmas and they get caught up in the materialistic aspect,” said senior Nathan Davis. “We need to realize what it’s really about and live it.”