Overcommercialization?

[Doc]

Holidays lately seem to be an excuse for buying things. Even Veterans' Day, which honors those who have died fighting for their country, is now heralded by car sales and shopping opportunities. Have holidays become overly commercialized and desensitized? Do people just use holidays as an excuse for drinking, eating, and more stuff, or is there still thankis in Thanksgiving, Christ in Christmas, etc.?

[Mike70]

good question man. i don't know how to answer in some respects but i'll try. holidays should be and are (to me at least) what you make of them. halloween is my favorite and most sacred holiday because it is ancient as hell and takes me (and a lot of other folks) back to our roots and ethnicity. the fact that kids get candy and adults dress up and use it as an excuse to get drunk doesn't take away from its sacredness to me at all. halloween has always been a big, big frakking holiday in my family, it was something we looked forward to as much as christmas - not just for the candy and whatnot but the way that it could connect us back to who we really are and what we were in the beginning- immigrants in a strange land. then again i grew up in a family that still lit bonfires (or whatever we could get away with) on imbolc, beltane, and halloween was always a huge, huge deal. i am half irish by ancestry (the other half is english) and my family has always tried to stay as connected to that as possible, even though we are seperated from ireland by lots of time and an ocean. anyway i would go back to my first para. don't get bummed. a holiday is what you make of it, not what commercials are telling you it should be.

[Bruiser235]

Even Veterans' Day, which honors those who have died fighting for their country, is now heralded by car sales and shopping opportunities. Agreed. What about Memorial Day, a day set aside for honoring those who made the ultimate sacrifice? It's been reduced to "the first day of summer" (which it ISN'T) and an excuse to sell things. BTW I think Veterans Day, while begun to honor the end of WW1, honors those veterans still living. Memorial Day honors those veterans killed. That aside, I agree with your point.

[dannoofthedead]

A lot of these days do seem to be getting overrun with sales and advertisements. But it is all in what you make of it. Halloween has always been the best with Independence Day coming in a close second. If you can't stop what you're doing, be thankful and even reverent for the meaning of that day, then it really does't matter. People are always going to find a way to make a buck, whether they sell cut rate Japanese electronics on Pearl Harbor Day or jack up the price on those Stations of the Cross Plates on QVC on Easter Sunday. Its just looking past all that and keeping the true meaning of the holiday in your heart and mind. Christ, I sound like an afterschool special.

[kortick]

it is a capatalist economy people need to sell things so they can pay bills, eat, buy clothes ect. if they use a holiday as a marketing device it is for these reasons there is no one forcing anyone to succumb to the wishes of a store. the holidays are what YOU make them if you choose them to be about material things so be it if you choose to honor them for what they represent, then so be that. You have choice, no matter what store says different.