Maybe it’s because I’m asian and my family doesn’t celebrate really celebrate any holidays but what’s the deal with Christmas and New Year? On December 31 I was channel-surfing and settled for Fox News hoping that the New Years Coverage would interesting. Minutes into the show I found myself playing a game of who’s that famous person when my father looked up from his laptop and commented “crazy Americans. What’s so special about New Years?” Several days earlier as my mother was watching the telly she asked “Why do Americans like Christmas so much?”
My initial thought was it’s an American thing. But I was born and raised in America; I go to school in America; in middle and elementary school I said the pledge every morning. I’m definitely more familiar with America than China so why don’t I jump for joy when the 25th approaches?
As soon as December starts the television is flooded with Christmas specials and movies. Every year there has to be at least one broadcasting of ELF or the Grinch and people still watch it despite how many times they’ve seen it. The media focuses so much on Christmas that it’s hard not to get sucked into the red, white and green joy. Reruns of old shows are shown; kids get hyped up, the older audience gets all nostalgic; and you have a nation wanting to buy christmas presents.
New Years is confusing as well. Why do thousand of people crowd into Times Square on a freezing cold night just to see a ball drop and create a mess that some unfortunate person(s) will clean for less than a minute? Why must there always be some sort of New Years resolution? I want to get all A’s! I’m going to lose weight! I’m going to blah blah blah. Every year it’s the same thing. Doesn’t it ever get boring? Maybe there is some real value behind it but it looks like another to excuse for big company owners and managers advertise and for consumers to mindlessly shop like zombies with no after guilt because it was in spirit of the holidays.
Yes, there's definitely an excess of consumerism. But I do think the holidays tap into something else for a lot of Americans--a reprieve from seasonal depression disorder, maybe? I think it's probably a lot of nostalgia for childhoods we're misremembering, an ideal of a kindler, gentler time that we romanticize--but in the day to day, you're probably right that it comes down to massive marketing campaigns.
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