I love Christmas! To me it’s turning another calendar month into fun! I love the colours! Red, white and green. I love the bright lights. I love how creative people can be with decorating their trees and their home. The gingerbread cookies, the clothes, and the music. Christmas is art for life.

It really makes me cringe to hear people call these beautiful holidays as just marketing ploys. Businesses use holidays to their advantage, but we can choose to buy into them.

I don’t like how people blow off all the festivities of Christmas as religious and prefer living blandly. Religion creates holidays for their advantage, but we can choose to believe in them, we can make our own interpretation as to what to believe in.

So first on the marketing argument:

Buying gifts for people in this day and age is ridiculous. Buying cards is a waste of money. And don’t even make me get into gift cards, and even gift registries! Everyone has what they want, and if they didn’t they would have bought it already. There is a good chance that the item you got for someone is something they don’t want. There is a bigger chance that the item you got for someone is something they don’t need.  And for some reason we have to be polite and grateful. This is the attitude that marketing guys are content with. So here is my anti-consumerist alternative option in the same spirit of gift giving. Instead of buying gifts for people, why don’t you provide a service?

Provide a 30 minute service to each person on your gift giving list. 30 minutes is how long it probably takes on average to buy a gift. It’s probably more when taking into consideration the transportation time, the line ups and even the time it takes to put on your boots to get out of your house. But I’m sure your friend would be more thrilled with a 30 minute of your service coupon that can be redeemed any time of the year.

I could use a 30 minute service too. So, friend, please don’t add another candle to my house. Please use the time you used to get me the candle and the hours it took to earn the money for the candle into some help. What I could really use is some help with carrying new furniture into my home, or someone to edit my grant forms, or help with my housework or help with gardening. Maybe you could argue that we should always be available to help our friends, but in our world of ‘every man for himself’ people aren’t as eager to help just as much as they aren’t eager to ask for help.

And now to solve the problem with money on decorations:

Artists are some of the poorest people I know, yet have the nicest homes, and coolest clothes. Creativity is not relative to finances! Once you buy your Christmas decorations, why do you need to buy them again the next year? Why do you need to buy a real Christmas tree that will die in a few weeks? Get a fake tree and use the same Christmas decorations as last year! Use your inner artist to arrange them differently to look different and keep it fresh.

As for religion:

So you are an atheist. Does that mean in atheist world we can’t ever follow tradition? We can’t have fun? We can’t have a certain theme for certain days of the year to mark the passage of time? Is it impossible to decorate your house and eat gingerbread cookies without celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ?

And also: yes, I will still call it CHRISTmas, because I like the sound of that word and I grew up celebrating CHRISTmas. And I think Santa Clause is a perfect mascot for this time, just because it was thought of by marketing Coca Cola guys, doesn’t mean we have to write it off immediately as evil. I think the idea of an old man who lives in the north pole and keeps warm with a red robe and travels with reindeers is a very funny idea, so I will keep it.

So knock Christmas if you want, but I won’t! I am entitled to a festive yet anti-consumerist & non-religious Christmas.