Well, growing up we did not celebrate Christmas. Christmas day was theh boringist day of the year. All of my friends were home with their families with gifts from santa, which I did not get. School was closed, hell everything was closed. Boring. However, every Christmas season we did go to see the Nutcracker Suite at Lincoln Center, I loved it, but it did not even really register with me that it was about Christmas time. I always wanted a tree, but my parents wouldn’t have one. Although, they were happy to go to Christmas parties and tree trimming parties, and liked Christmas music.
As a teen I dated a guy who celebrated Christmas, and I found buying gifts for everyone stressful, and receiving gifts stressful also. Epecially how they did it, one at a time, each person in the family opened their gifts, with all eyes on the person.
Finally as I got older I began to enjoy Christmas more. I was working in retail and loved to watch the decorations go up, and the bustle in the stores. But, it is also a time of year that sucks the life out of you when you work retail. Completely exhausting.
To sum up, the commercialization of Christmas is kind of what helped me understand the Christmas spirit, working in the stores, and being around a lot of people in the Christmas frame of mind. But, I have to say that I think it completely takes away from what Christmas is really supposed to be, celebrating the birth of Christ. If you really make me choose, I think Christmas should be a religious holiday, without emphasis on gift giving. I understand that Russians do their gift giving on New Years. I like that idea. Chanukah became a gift giving holiday to compete with Christmas, I think the commercialization detracts from the religion and the tradition. Meanwhile, I am not religious, or Christian, so why should I really care.