A new holiday?

We’ve all heard the complaint.  Most of us have probably made the complaint at least a few times over the years.  I would say it’s a valid complaint too.  What complaint am I talking about?  Well, I’m talking about people complaining that “Christmas is too commercial,” or “it’s all about gifts,” or “we have taken Christ out of Christmas,” that sort of complaint.

I certainly feel that the complaint is valid.  After all, the Christmas holiday is really supposed to be a religious thing.  Where along the line the whole gift giving thing came into play, I am not certain.  What I do know, though, is that the gift giving part is what it is all about for many people.   Heck, even many people who are not Christian celebrate Christmas by giving gifts and such.  If you think about it, it does become pretty obvious that the religious aspect of the holiday has kind of taken a back seat to the other parts of the holiday.

Yes, it’s very commercialized.  During this time of year the malls are all filled up with people buying gifts for their family and friends.  You see one advertisement after another of what you need to buy for the holiday.  It gets a little over bearing, even if you are not a religious person.  But, what can we do?  How can we take it back to what it is supposed to be about?

Well, I have a way that we can do it.  Actually, I didn’t think of the idea, I read about it online.  Really, I have thought of this over the years, but never really had the guts to mention it to my family before!  I think it could potentially cause a riot, especially among the kids.

You can read about the idea in John Dvorak’s column, “In Defense of the Grinch” in PC Magazine.  Dvorak says that he wants to celebrate Christmas in January!  Think about it, all Christmas wrapping paper is like 90% off, the cool gifts that we wish we could afford are suddenly 40-50% off after Christmas is over (the retailers want to move out the stock that didn’t sell for Christmas, after all).  So, you just don’t buy anything until after December 25, and get huge savings.  Celebrate in January sometime.

I kind of thought of an idea that goes beyond what Dvorak is talking about, though.  If you are a Christian, celebrate Christmas on December 25 as normal, but without the gift giving, without the non-religious aspects that have become so popular.  Save that for your January celebration.  Don’t call the January celebration “Christmas” instead call it “Gift Day” or some other appropriate name.

Of course, this won’t work if everybody shifts as I suggest.  If that happened, all of the retailers would not be clearing out the stuff, they would wait until the day after the “gift day” celebration.  But, that will never happen anyway.  More than 99% of people will always celebrate on December 25.  So, if you personally hold your more religious celebration on December 25, and then have a festive gift day in January, you get to enjoy two holidays, and still save half of your money!  Or, you could spend the same amount of money, and just have a lot nicer gifts than normal!

I personally would love to do this, but I don’t think it would sit well with my family.  It’s hard to say for sure.  Maybe I’ll make a mention to my wife and see how she reacts.  Or maybe I’ll wait and see if she reads this article first!  Ha ha… that would be the easy way to go about it.

What do you think?