During the holiday season, it is easy to forget the true meaning of Christmas. As cliché as this may sound I find it to be very truthful. There seems to be a lot of pressure put on regular everyday average Americans, to celebrate, share the good will and get that perfect gift for that special some one in your life. Possibly your lover, mother or brother. Each year the same trend seems to be followed. September and October roll around and the season begins to change. The trees color turn light red and yellow as they begin to loose their leaves. The temperature drops and it is soon October 31st, Halloween as we all know. A fun tradition that all enjoy participating in. Children dress up in costumes and run from door to door trying to spread cheer and collect as much sugary candy as possible. As fun as it all seems we all know what the true meaning of Halloween is and it is to prepare you for Thanksgiving.
At the same time pumpkins are being carved and candy is purchased, turkeys and Thanksgiving decorations are set up across department stores, grocery stores, and convenience stores nationwide. Once November is finally here, we are all ready bundled up in sweaters with turkey's thawing in the kitchen sink, and football being viewed on television sets across America. Keeping the family together for what is only dinner. No tree, no presents, just thanks and giving, for family friends, health, or what ever you may be thankful for. The day after Thanksgiving, is consider by many as "Black Friday", dreary as it may sound, Black Friday is the largest Christmas shopping day of the year. It is on this day that all hell seems to break loose and will continue its reign until January is here.
Christmas is recognized as he day that Jesu...
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...umanity? Where is the good will toward men? All though the times have changed and Christmas isn't the same as It's a Wonderful Life or Miracle on 33rd Street brilliant magical events are still possible. Christmas is still a warm time of year, whether you celebrate the holiday or not, there is still that feeling in the air. It may be colder, but remember to stay warm for the health of your body and soul. Keep family and friends close, sing a Carole, drink hot chocolate, take a minute to look at the lights on the houses and just enjoy. Even with all the plastic elements of the seasons still in existence we all know what this time of year is about. We all celebrate and perceive in different ways. Christmas will always stay dear to children and adults a like, and it's a
wonderful excuse to vacation and relax before the Baby New Year pokes his head around the corner.
Every year we celebrate a holiday at the end of October involving costumes, candy, and pranks. Can you guess which holiday I am talking about? Of course you can! Halloween is one of the biggest holidays of the year ,second only to (in my opinion) Christmas. We follow many strange traditions on Halloween, but why? Why do we dress up? Why do we get candy? And what is the meaning of the phrase “ Trick or Treat”?
It is seen in everything from the hoarding of material objects to the destruction of friendships, both of which are popular themes when regarding the topic of Black Friday shopping. Black Friday has become Black Thursday, a trend which has only shown up within the last decade. The great American holiday that is Thanksgiving is celebrated because of our gratefulness toward all that we have, a holiday that is meant to be spent gathered around a table of our loved ones. However, the retail holiday that consumes the day afterward has begun to overflow into our gatherings, and it is due to the greed of the American people. Were it not for the market’s demand for earlier sales, stores would not open their sales on Thursday nights. Everyone would simply wait until early the next morning to start off on their shopping extravaganzas, and the sales themselves would likely be far less violent as
On christmas, you get presents but on halloween, you get candy. Kids like both of these holidays for these reasons and more. On christmas, besides the present, there is a discount for everything. You can buy video games for 50 percent off! Who wouldn’t like that! On christmas, you get the anticipation, and, on some parts of the world, snow comes falling down from the vast sky. With snow, you can do plenty of things like build a snowman, snow angels and etc. On halloween though, y...
So many people complain about how little attention society pays to Thanksgiving. Every year for as long as can be remembered, the public has been gradually minimizing the amount of time that is spent celebrating this day of thanks and gratitude. This is simply because the whole country is more interested in the more important holiday that follows it: Black Friday. In fact, Black Friday is not only more important than Thanksgiving; it is without a doubt the most important holiday of the year. Only in America do people devote an entire day (now two days in some parts of the country) to fighting each other over department store sales less than one day after proclaiming their thankfulness for the things they already have.
With the end of October and the beginning of November, two historically celebrated holidays come to pass. Each holiday has been celebrated for centuries, and each one continues to have a large impact on society. Interestingly, they developed in two separate civilizations from different hemispheres and occur around the same time. The two distinct holidays of Halloween and Day of the Dead both share similar origins and a focus on spiritual aspects and yet have still remained unique celebrations that continue to largely impact culture.
Thanksgiving Day is a day of family, food, and giving thanks for the blessings in life and yet some people believe Thanksgiving to be a prep day for Black Friday, the biggest shopping day of the year. The focus of Thanksgiving shifted from family bonding to incessant shopping. This trend of taking away from the hours of Thanksgiving in order to shop is enraging. It steals away from family time for the shoppers and the employees. Employers threaten workers that if they do not work on that certain holiday, they will be fired. Black Friday should be kept to Friday instead of moving in on my family time. The whole culture of Black Friday has become repugnant and unnecessary.
Americans celebrate Halloween as a sort of party in our communities. We hold parties and kids go trick-or-treating around the neighborhood. For
My parents traveled for a living, and even though they were gone a lot I still remember them being home ever holiday. We carved pumpkins, decorated, and dressed up each year. I remember running
Christmas is a special time of year that deserves to be remembered for its true meaning. Every year, Christmas becomes more and more commercialized and society forgets the origin of Christmas. It was not started with cookies, toys, and a fat man that delivers them, but instead it started with a humble inn where our Savior was born. The definition of Christmas is “a holiday on December 25 celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ.” Nowhere in that definition does it say anything about the outrageous pressure society has set on consumers to buy, buy, buy during the Christmas season. Christmas is about presence not presents.
November is an intoxicating month; the leaves finish falling, the air is crisp, and football is starting to get exciting. It's also the month of Thanksgiving. Sitting down together and watching football with some turkey and a beer is a family tradition for many. And after the food coma comes the shopping. In fact, Black Friday shopping is a tradition many families participate in together. However, it's getting out of hand. Every year stores open earlier and earlier, cutting into family time, making Black Friday, Black Thursday. Stores should open no earlier than 5 AM on the Friday following Thanksgiving.
For almost every man, woman and child on earth, October 31 means candy, kids running on the streets, spooky costumes and scary movies. But the story and evolution behind one of the most commercial holidays in the world, Halloween, is quite interesting.
People dream of the months of pumpkin spice, fall leaves, and scary decorations. When that's all over, they move on to putting their decorations on a tree, hanging twinkly lights, and drinking eggnog. The months of October through December cause people to become enlivened at the thought of what they will do to celebrate the holidays that are in them. Halloween and Christmas are two holidays in the last few months of the year that so many people look forward to. Halloween is the fear-based holiday involving frightful decor, receiving candy from strangers, and dressing in costume while throwing a party. Christmas is celebrated by filling houses with all things red and green, gifting presents topped with bows, having a family dinner, and throwing
Christmastime was always a magical time of year for me. The beautifully decorated shopping malls, with toys everywhere you looked, always fascinated me. And the houses, with the way their lights would glow upon the glistening snow at night, always seemed to calm me. But decorating the Christmas tree and falling asleep underneath the warm glow of the lights, in awe that Santa Claus would soon be there, was the best part of it all. As a child, these things enchanted me. Sure, the presents were great, but the excitement and mystery of Christmas; I loved most of all. Believing…that’s what it was all about. Believing there really was a Santa and waking up Christmas morning, realizing he’d come, as my sleepy eyes focused on all the fancily wrapped presents before me.
Jesus Christ is the reason for the season. Jesus is the reason we are able to celebrate this holiday. He is the reason we have so many presents at Christmas, but sometimes I think we take it for granted. When Jesus was born, he received three presents which is where we get the giving part of Christmas from. He was thankful for what he got, and there are some children that receive a shoe box, and could not be happier that someone in this world is thinking about them. On the other hand, there are some children that receive everything they ask for and more, and are still not happy because they wanted more. In my eyes, we should all be thankful for what we receive, and we should not want more after someone has went through the trouble of getting us what we got. Jesus does not want this day to be about getting presents, he wants this day to be about remembering him, and being happy that you are on the earth he created for us to live