Lugi4421wii: My question to you which made me want to ask...why do you hate it? You didn't go into details much about why. I can agree with something's on your list there but not all of them. Could you please tell me why?

I must admit you have a point. However, I would get Christmas out of that list, because it's a tradition, with its origins back in the Roman Empire. All the other entries in your list don't have such history, they are just special days to commemorate something, and the markets soon saw the potential of them.

Easter isn't celebrated much around here, so much so that things like Easter Eggs are nearly extinct around here. We have other religious celebrations to care for (though I could care less for anything related to religion).

Valentine's was just destined to become a commercial fest. And well, Black Friday was literally created for this purpose. I don't know elsewhere, but here in Spain it is an absolute charade (prices get ridiculously inflated just so they can announce an enormous discount without losing much benefit).

Halloween isn't that much of an issue here. People only dress up like zombies, witches or similar; pumpkins, skeletons and similar are used for decorations; and that's pretty much it. There's no trick-or-treat around here, and I doubt there will ever be, so it has just turned into a secondary Carnival celebration.

There are probably some special days around here that have also mutated into commercial fests, but I would have to look it up, and I don't care that much about special days anymore. Only Christmas, Halloween and any instance where the family can be reunited interest me.

Your views on these holidays are understandable from your perspective, but there are several misconceptions.

Many of our holidays were actually taken from ancient rituals, and integrated into what is claimed to be Christianity by the catholic church. Christmas, for example, was actually being celebrated as saturnalia in ancient Rome long before Jesus was ever born, and has always been commercial. Before it was celebrated as saturnalia, it was a ritualistic ancient Babylonian festival of sun worship, complete with decorated trees and giving of gifts.

Easter was named after Ishtar, one of many manifestations of venus (which the christmas tree also represents) worshiped by the assyrians. The "easter rabbit" and "easter eggs" actually originate from hindu mythology, if I'm not mistaken on this one, where there was a rabbit that laid golden eggs.

St. Valentines Day was also originally a ritualistic, maybe even pre Roman festival known as lupercalia, celebrated on the same day. In short, it was a fertility ritual where all the young girls would submit their names, and then a boy would draw one. And for the rest of the year, they were together. Love really never had anything to do with it.

Black Friday and Black Tuesday have absolutely nothing to do with each other. Black Friday was named so because accountants right debt in red ink and profit in black. It's the time of year where people do the most of their christmas shopping and companies' chance to get back "in the black."

Mother's/Father's/Grandparent's day are hardly commercialized by comparison, and to my knowledge, are one of the only ones that aren't deeply rooted in pagenism.

And Halloween is derived from the old celtic festival of samhain (pronounced sow-when,) which is more or less just the anglo-saxon equivelant of saturnalia. They would even carve turnips in place of pumpkins, hoping they would scare away evil spirits.

I dislike the commercialism of a lot of these. But there is a market for that kind of stuff, and people buy it, so they know it's a profitable venture. Christmas is gift giving, and decorating. So of course everyone would be all over that.
Easter is...Well, nobody but Hallmark and candy makers capitalize on that. It's rather tame in terms of marketing.
Valentines day is just the stupidest holiday ever. Nobody but people who sell cards and chocolate or maybe flowers market for that.
Black Friday is just the beginning of the Christmas shopping season. It's not so much of a holiday as it is people crowding every single store in order to save a few dollars.
Mother's day and Father's day are...Not really capitalized on at all.
Halloween is a really niche market. It's just a few guys who make a ton of cash because they only have a short window where they actually do anything.

m0ssb3rd935: The whole Easter thing is actually a Mesopotamian thing. I think it was Babylonians? Eh, who cares, everyone who celebrated those pagan things as actual pagan worship died long long ago. Now everything is just a confusing clustered...thing. I hate it.

I might as well say mine. I do like some commercials the only one I wouldn't like is black Friday, Halloween and valentines day of the sort. I don't really celebrate Halloween and causing me not to like it. And valentine's is an annoying one for me...which is why I don't watch tv. I try to escape it but then its on the web a week before or a few days to it. I love mothers day commercials it makes you want to appreciate your mother more. Fathers day I don't like so much now because of personal problems to do with that. Easter commercials are ok. It reminds me to go and get my Easter egg lol. XD

I can understand the dislike of how commercial everything is. It is all just a big grab for money. But at the same time,it keeps the economy rolling so you have to take the good with the bad.

The reasons why I hate holidays.

Valentine's Day-Self explanatory,if a guy forgets to get his girl something on that accursed day,woe to him. And the bad part is that Valentine was corrupted so much it is pathetic. Valentine's legends were he restored sight to a blind girl,he aided and married Christians among others.

St. Patrick's Day-Basically an excuse to drink green beer and get wasted. (I am okay with this one,lol)

Easter-Another excuse for candy,eggs,cards,and kids being hyper as hell.

Mother's and Father's Day-I am okay with them both,you should be thankful to your parents,or at least play nice that day.

Fourth of July-That is a time of pride,but is usually a time for cookouts and fireworks.

Halloween-Another excuse for candy and hyper kids. Again this has been corrupted.

Thanksgiving-Basically an excuse to eat yourself sick. But it is good to remember your family and to be with them.

Christmas-Only enjoyable if you are drunk,you have a ton of cash or if you have small kids.

I dislike it as well. My wife and I choose to not celebrate most holidays now. New years we stay home, Valentines day is skipped (we go out before or after but not on that day and we don't do cards), Halloween costumes are home made, Christmas is as minimal as we can make it.

That to me is the only real way to fight the commercialization of things. Stop spending money on the themed items that are up for purchase. Either DIY or skip it altogether.

I have to agree. Although all of these holidays have been pretty commercialized the entire time I've been alive, I feel like it has gotten a heck of a lot worse over the past 15-20 years.

Here's a quick breakdown of thoughts regarding a couple of the holidays mentioned:

Christmas - This holiday has devolved so far from the peace on earth stuff. Now it's treated (especially in the US) as an excuse to sell a bunch of garbage to people who want to amass a whole bunch of stuff, half of which they won't care about 6 months from now. People willing to camp out in the dead of winter to get a good deal on a crock pot or a sub par brand TV. Then dealing with people in these situations is a nightmare. That's my least favorite thing I think about the holidays. Having to be in a retail environment during the holidays. Such a nightmare.

I could really go on and on. Christmas is certainly more geared for the kids. Enjoy it while you can lol

Valentines day - Isn't it crazy that this holiday has somehow turned into a determination if you love someone or not? Or at least that's the way it's portrayed. Like if you love someone, wouldn't you show it EVERY day (at least most days) not just once a year? Then it's crazy that all of a sudden around Feb 14th that the price of a Card, flowers and chocolates inflates by 300+%? I mean come on. A hallmark holiday indeed.

Easter/Halloween/Mothers/Fathers day - These are all basically the same as Valentines day. Just an excuse to sell a crazy amount of candy/cards/jewlery/etc.

Although Halloween has kinda evolved oddly in the past 15 years. It used to be a holiday about kids dressing up with their friends and getting candy. But now it's devolved into an excuse for adults to drink and by revealing costumes. Seems like kids don't get that into Halloween anymore at least not as much as we did as kids.

Well, I mean. That's how capitalism works. You don't hate these holidays or how they're practiced, you hate how capitalism works in our society. Plus, most opinions here are pretty biased on what you experience.
Anyways, no. Fighting commercialism doesn't really work. It'll just make the economy go in a different direction than the one that's here.

Do I hate the commercialization of everything? No. Because it doesn't affect me. There might be a billion commercials or whatever, but personally it does not affect me. Nor does it have any reason to. I'm not going to lose the appeal of a holiday because "It's an excuse to sell stuff". Because, pretty much everything in our culture right now is an excuse to sell stuff.

@Eniitan: I hate these such commercialisations because of the way it's creeping up more and more and has turned things of religion, saints, or other things into a way of selling products, especially Christmas and Easter because the commercialisations of those two have particularly affected it. It doesn't always affect me in particular but annoys me to an extent.


Also Jordanv78 you have a very accurate description of Christmas. I don't think it helps that over in the US you can't call it Christmas without the politically correct brigade being whiny about it, either, as far as I know.


@maguc: Not all of this affects me and it's true nearly everything is about selling stuff.




(also tell somebody that the normal editor doesn't let you type anything in the latest Opera)

Ok, here's a list on everything...

Christmas..

A day that was supposed to be about spending time together with a nice dinner and getting a few gifts (like 1 or 2 things). But in reality, people are like this "Give me my *beeping* gifts now", and leaves without dinner or staying. Personally Christmas wouldn't be too bad if companies doesn't take advantage over this holiday to have their worthless garbage on sale.


Post-Chriatmas/New Years

Just as bad as those Christmas sales, they mostly want to get rid on all their surplus that they have stores for the entire Christmas sales and they go completely overboard about selling all their worthless garbage.


Black Friday/Cyber Monday

This is what I really hate the most, people camps out at store and sacrifice their family time on Thanksgiving just to save $50 on a $1,000 TV, and the thing I really don't get is why they want to wait till the day after Thanksgiving to do this. I remember that Christmas shopping didn't start till December, but the way it's going to be, they might discontinue Thanksgiving and making it called "Shopalozza" or whatever.


Halloween

I got to admit it, Halloween is a pretty good holiday, it would be better if they ease up on some of the advertisements. And also agreeing on Jordan, it isn't much of a kiddy holiday anymore, it turned into more of an adult holiday because kids don't go trick or treating anymore than a decade ago (when I was a kid). Mostly the ones that do more of the dress-ups in really young kids or adult attending parties.


Valentines Day/Easter/Mother's & Father's Day

Good excuse for candy companies and card companies to gain a lot of profits by going completely overboard with these 4 holidays.


Those are by my own words on what companies do during these holidays

I saw a comment on kuribo64, Yami saw Christmas stuff being sold in mid-october, somebody else stated "What were they doing, it was 10 months late!"

Unfortunately for you, as long as people will keep buying for those Holidays their "commercialism" will remain. True, I find it sickening at time but I do my part to "stop it": I simply stop buying. It started early for Easter; the sheer amount of "chocolate" I would receive was simply nauseating and terrible for health. As for St. Valentine's, I never dated to have to feel the "repercussion" of missing it. Besides, why wait ONE day to say, "I love you"?

Fortunately Honey thinks the same and we barely buy for these Holidays - although we did get a tree this year. He even agreed, as I have long suggested we do, to skip Halloween and instead spend the night for ourselves as an uncle has been doing with his family for years now.

I agree. It SUCKS that great holidays are ruined by that kind of thing.