To perceive Christmas through its wrappings becomes more difficult with every year.
Jesus' birthday is commercialized, so of course, Black History Month is commercialized.
Consumerism is the reason Christmas has morphed into a hollow shopping ritual that leaves too many families with debt hangovers and an empty feeling inside.
I detest 'Jingle Bells,' 'White Christmas,' 'Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer,' and the obscene spending bonanza that nowadays seems to occupy not just December, but November and much of October, too.
We no longer sing and dance. We don't know how to. Instead, we watch other people sing and dance on the television screen. Christmas, which was once a festival of active enjoyment, has turned into a binge of purely passive pleasures.
It is all well and good for children and acid freaks to believe in Santa Claus - but it is still a profoundly morbid day for us working professionals. It is unsettling to know that one out of every twenty people you meet on Xmas will be dead this time next year.... Some people can accept this, and some can't. That is why God made whiskey, and also why Wild Turkey comes in $300 shaped canisters during most of the Christmas season...
I think the people who are making Christmas-themed movies today feel that people are more cynical about Christmas. There's more of an edge.
The notion of a non-religious Christmas is ridiculous. But so is the insistence on the part of Christians that politicians and retailers carry out their pro-Christmas crusade.
