When did Christmas become synonymous with shopping?

Question

When I was growing up there was a bit of Christmas shopping that was done, but nothing compared to what I've seen in recent years. Kids used to get inexpensive, but really nice gifts like board games, lincoln logs, paint-by-number kits, etc. But now people are spending thousands and thousands of dollars on shopping for Christmas gifts and the decorations are getting to be more over-the-top each year. Why and when did this shift towards holiday consumerism occur, and will it ever return to more simpler times?

Answer 1

Only when people stop falling into the commercialism pocket and quit doing it! Every time you buy a Mothers Day card, or bag of Halloween candy or tree ornament or Easter dress, you say it's OK for big business to do exactly what they are doing, and that's sucking the life out of us one dollar at a time.
Since I became associated with Jehovah's Witnesses and have stopped celebrating all worldly holidays, I can see more clearly each year how it's done. Think this is really the season of good cheer? Go to your local mall and sit and watch. Think family is what it's all about? Go down the street in your own neighborhood and look in the window at the one depressed because they don't have anyone to 'share'all this 'good will' with. Look for the one who is now broke and can't pay rent for his family to live in January. Look for the suicidal, because there are more at this time of year than at any other. Think this is about Jesus and his birth? It's not known for certain WHEN Jesus was born, but Bible scholars think it was sometime in October, not December 25. That is a pagan holiday date from Roman days that was incooperated into the church to bring in the pagans much in the same way that the Fall Festivals and Hell Houses have been incooperated into Halloween to get folks into the church!
So, in answer to your question, it WON'T unless and until we all REALLY look at who is profiting from all the money spent and why we buy into it in the first place and then re-examine our motives.

Answer 2

Because communism has proved itself not to 'work', to be a system fundamentally flawed. However, these traits are never compared to capitalism either. In the 1930s, you had the crazy years. Hitler and Stalin were rising up through their ranks in their Socialist parties. It's a fascinating time, when fascism was considered 'the future'. But all these people cared about was war, and war they got. Lenin and Marx were so awfully betrayed by Stalin - many of Stalin's old friends? He had them killed. However, the Soviets were incredibly powerful, and licked the US a few times fairly at the space race. They also built more nuclear weapons in the cold war, and hold the record for testing the most powerful nuclear device ever - the energy released was about 1% of the sun. But Stalin's domestic policy was brutal, and once the government folded (no one really knows why this happened, but it did) some states couldn't wait to break away and form independence. You have to look at Stalinist Communism realistically. That's *the* biggest country in the world, and the Soviets held it together for 50 years before it collapsed and the repression set in. Tao was a great villian, but Chinese Communism today seems to be working. Sure, they hate the poor, just as much as America does, but corporations involving themselves in China have led to outrageous acts of civil violence. Cuba itself is not a dictatorship. How can anyone say Cuba is a dictatorship? The entire struggle of Che was based on how capitalism doesn't work, that it leads to dictatorship, and they were very, very aware of that. Sure, the guerrilias were highly trained fighters. That's on the side. They were pretty angry people. In truth, a lot of claims about Communism are bogus, fear mongering tactics. During the Cold War, outrageous scare stories were spread to hype up the fear, so Capitalism could experiment on the poor. Certainly Communism has lost its idealist roots, but there are many, many schools of thought today, some which seem perfectly applicable and acceptable. The real problem hits, however, when redistribution of wealth is mentioned. Capitalism hates that. It wants to keep it for itself. It doesn't want the poor to have capital. It doesn't care about the poor or the middle class. What it cares about is the rich. So redistributing wealth, is out of the question. So these scare stories are spread. And by this point you probably have answers full of gibberish and nonsense, but I'll leave it up to you what you want to decide.

Answer 3

It's been this way as far back as I can remember, and I was born in 1972. I always remember Christmas equating with trips to the mall to sit on Santa's lap and looking through the Sears Wish Book catalog and telling Mom what toys I wanted. It's just a shame they put Christmas stuff out so early now, like at the end of October.

Answer 4

Will it ever revert back to simpler times ,,,,? Not hardly ,,,, The tradition of gifts for Christmas originated with the three wise men bearing gifts to Christ ,,,, Since then the greedy corporate/political systems we have now have not only commercialized it but escalated it ,,,, Their greed is the only reason we have troops deployed now ,,,, The corporate/political sectors suck up on anything involving money ,,,, They've commercially escalated Christmas for the same reasons they escalate their wars ,,,,,, Money ,,,,,,

Answer 5

Will it ever return to more simpler times?


They dont even wait untill halloween is over before the Christmas trees are put up in the dept stores!

you ask "Will it ever return to more simpler times?"
Answer, When where is no more greed!

Answer 6

It is because no one really cares about the meaning of Christmas anymore. I wish just once, our families could come together, and spend Christmas just like they did in the olden days...but it is never going to happen.

Answer 7

Christmas? What's that? Do you mean "The Holiday Season"? It's so far out of hand it's disgusting.

Answer 8

its hard to imagine that Christmas will ever get back to normal. or any another celebration for that matter. i think it will be up to every ones own individual understanding of there concepts of these fests. . why let cooperate greed stop you from, having traditional values.

Answer 9

Society and big merchants have pushed it in this direction

Answer 10

will it ever return to more simpler times please God, I hope so.