As the Thanksgiving weekend winds down, I find myself with a feeling of relief that one of the 2 big holidays is finally over. However, I am also filled with some sense of impending doom as the Christmas shopping season enters full swing. I have no interest in joining the masses of crazed bargain hunters flocking to shopping malls and stores all over the country, but at some point I will likely be forced to.

It wasn’t always this way. I used to enjoy shopping for Christmas gifts for family and friends. It would actually increase my enjoyment of the holiday season to go on a trek for the perfect token of my love and appreciation of various people in my life.

However, the last few years have brought an ever increasing resentment of the holiday season. It seems that Christmas starts earlier every year with each participant wanting to make it bigger and better. My next door neighbor is a perfect example of this.

My neighbor’s yard decorations are pretentious and annoying, and have grown each year since I moved into my house. They started out simple enough with strings of lights outlining his house and a couple of small displays in the yard. This year, though, they have grown to the point where he has taken over other neighbors’ yards in order to expand his display. There are 3 foot tall candy canes surrounding his yard and the 3 other yards in the cul-de-sac. He has animatronic reindeer and angels, and an animatronic Santa Claus on his sleigh. The amount of light given off by these decorations keeps people up at night.

This is just one example of the scope creep of the holiday season and how it brings out the worst in people. We have shoppers getting in fist fights (and worse) over toys because they can’t tell their children no. Suicide rates increase during the holiday season, as do instances of violent crime. Nobody seems to even remember the reason why we celebrate Christmas any more. Whatever happened to peace on earth and good will towards man? These lessons have been overshadowed by people’s desire to not only keep up with the Joneses but to prove themselves better than the Joneses to fill the emptiness of their own self-loathing.

Don’t get me wrong, there are things I like about the holiday season, too. It gives familys a chance to gather in good cheer and catch up on the last year. The problem is that the holidays have been over-commercialized. The traditional meaning has been lost in the tide of Corporate America’s need to use the 4th quarter of each year to meet Wall Street’s expectations.

Holiday Spirit, thy name is Capitalism. Bah Humbug!

E.