Don’t be surprised if the word ‘Christmas’ gets replaced with the word
‘Commercialism’ in the near future, because that is what it has unfortunately turned into. People feel so much financial stress and anxiety around Christmas time, trying to come up with money and gift ideas to buy for their close friends and family. And when it is all said and done, your credit card is probably maxed out.
And the frustrating part for some, this tradition is only getting bigger every year. You always have new friends, coworkers or family member i.e new nephew, sister in law etc.) that you need to buy gifts for. Where does it end? When you have to dedicate almost two weeks or even more of pay, to buy gifts, you know something is wrong with this tradition. Something has to give.
How about doing a little game called ‘Secret Santa’ (AKA Kris Kringle) which a lot of you are familiar with? If you are not sure what it is or have never done it, it is quiet simple. First, you decide on who will be in the pool (your extended family circle, coworkers etc) . Each will draw a name randomly from the pool and you only buy gift for that one person. Depending on how many pools you are in, you will probably have to buy a maximum of 3 gifts instead of 10, and spend a maximum of $200 instead of $700 or more. That is a huge saving of about $500, not to mention time and your sanity.
There is no shame in suggesting this to your social circles, if it hasn’t already. No one will or should think of you as being cheap, in fact, they will be quiet happy that someone came up with this cost-saving idea for gift giving.
Let us take commercialism out of Christmas. Let us go back to the true meaning of Christmas: birth of the Christ, love and joy. Jesus didn’t come or intend to make his birthday a cause for bankrupting families. He wanted his birth date to be a cause for celebrating joy and the love of God.