The past few days have been a comercial mess. With the way the stock market has fluctuated, with Black Friday and Cyber Monday, and the usual mess that comes about with Thanksgiving Holiday’s.

In the past few years, the commercialization of the day after Thanksgiving [known as Black Friday] has sky-rocketed out of control. The amount of sales, early morning openings, and overall madness is a bit overwhelming. What started out as a few people wanting to get Christmas shopping done early, has turned into nearly a national holiday. In fact, this holiday has transcended almost everything it once stood for.

Christmas, at its very core, is a religious holiday. I’m sure you all know what Christmas is really about, the day Christians celebrate as Jesus’ birth. But somewhere along the lines, with the story of Ole’ St. Nick coming it, it turned into more than just a religious holiday. Soon people all across the nation [as well as other nations] started celebrating the holiday, despite their religious beliefs. And now, this holiday has even transcended that, becoming more of an economic holiday, rather than religious or international.

Much like Valentines Day [which is another over-commercialized holiday], Christmas is now the time of the year that the economy thrives on [especially now]. In fact, many corporations factor Christmas into product releases and updates [see video game industry]. But why is this one day so important? And why is it so important right now?

Today alone, the Dow Jones fell 679.95 points. This is due in large part to poor(er) Black Friday sales than most economists had predicted, as well as the fact that the government today finally admitted to being in a recession. People are now more hesitant to spend their money, but what they fail to realize is that if you DON’T spend money, the economy will fall even further. So if there is one positive thing, it is that we are’now’ in a recession as the Christmas season rolls around. Though Christmas sales may go down this year, they will never cease to exist.

But now I am personally torn between these two views. I hate to see a holiday so comercialised, but the capitalist in me says that if we [as a nation] can look beyond the numbers and continue to purchase as if the economy was fine, we will start to get out of it. I guess the biggest thing I [as well as anyone reading this] has to keep in mind is that this is the season of GIVING. Whether it be the most expensive gift, or not, its about being happy, thankful, and giving to others.

I know this is a bit of a departure from the rest of my blogs, but I just wanted to get that off my chest. I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving and is having a wonderful holiday season. It finally snowed here in Chicago and it finally feels like winter (though I don’t really want to be at school any more…). Thanks for checking out my blog and please subscribe if you like what you read!