For as long as I can remember people have complained about the commercialization of Christmas. This really is shameful because at the heart of it Christmas is about family and friends getting together and arguing over family feuds that lay dormant for the the better part of the rest of the year. But, business being business, it has has turned in to a great revenue generator, as well.
Over the past ten or twenty years, the costume industry has taken the quaint custom of home made costumes into the dark ages. A large part of the fun used to be who could come up with the best costumes but now everybody shows up wearing the same off-the rack jobs.
Disney is one of the worst culprits. You used to be able to find a decent costume, as little as four years ago for $15. These days, they have added sparkle, shine, and on average about $50 to the price tag. You can go to Wal-Mart or Zellers or even Value Village but you are still looking at $27 a costume and starting to think that this is a pretty good deal.
Now that you have the costume in hand, where to go with it is the next question. Sure they get to go to school dressed up but most of the costumes are for in door use and Trick or Treating is usually done outside. Places like Old Navy have started selling great padded out-door costumes so there is evolution.
Anyway, back to where to go. I opened the latest Parent City magazine and was amazed to see the multitude, a venerable plethora of venues promising a howling good times`. The most interesting is the Haunted Forest shindig being held by the Friends of Terra Cotta, in Caledon. All they want is $5 in advance or $7 at the door. So, I am thinking that this is a good deal, plus the scenery is beautiful.
Now to decorations. You can spend a pretty penny for these things. Everybody from the dollar stores to the big box chains is hoping that you`ll do what you can to get into the spirit. Well who can blame them? If the appetite is there, why not try to feed it for a profit.
The fault really lies with our society. What ever happened to real world old-school pot luck gatherings? We are just that disjointed with our friends, family, and neighbors that it is simply easier to go out and buy a bunch of stuff instead of do a little planning and make one bowl of punch or a plate of haunted cup cakes.
The biggest problem with commercialization of holiday institutions is not that people want to opt for convenience. It's that the object of the game gets lost and all you are left with is the things you bought, not what you bought them for. The point loses substance and becomes a hollow shadow of what it started off as being.
So what to do? Either push your friends and family to put together gatherings worth holding where everybody does a little something or understand that this is the evolution and a step closer to the decline of the Western Civilization. These are all symptoms of a bigger affliction.
Remember that all things organic have a life cycle and we are on the way down. So either strap in for a speedy descent or realize that convenience is an emotional paradigm. It will be inconvenient to realize that all of your kids memories when they become adults will have been store bought.
