I was watching A Charlie Brown Christmas on TV the
other night, and I started to think about the commercialism that disgusted Charlie
Brown. I remember watching this cartoon every year since it premiered in 1965.
The themes it portrays are still alive today. In fact, they are in
hyper-overdrive.
We’ve moved so far away from
the original celebrations of Christmas, that it has become a whole new holiday.
It is the Christmas of the 21st century complete with LED lights and
Apple Pay. It is the season of consumerism, consumption, greed and stress. Celebrating peace, love and joy has been
replaced by fighting in the mall over a parking space, punching out a fellow
shopper during the Black Friday melee, and maxing out our credit cards buying
gifts we feel obligated to purchase.
We feel so compelled to have
a Holly Jolly Christmas, that we lose
the joy and beauty of the season. Our
style of the celebration of Christmas gets its origins in German and English
traditions that were brought to thi…