Do they know it's Christmas time?

My son has been asking why everyone is decorated for Christmas. I tell him I don't know. He thinks Christmas is coming in a few days because all the decorations are up everywhere we go: in stores, in airports, on buildings...even cars are starting to sport those annoying grille wreaths.

For years of course, culture watchers have commented on and mainly lamented the sprawl that is the Christmas season. Target had their Christmas decorations out beside their Halloween costumes this year. It's unbelievable. If Thanksgiving weren't stuck at the butt end of November, Christmas preparations would really begin in earnest after Halloween.

Christmas, which like most Christian holidays, just happens to fall near a pagan celebration and just happens to parallel a few pagan traditions, is something I celebrate more as a cultural event than a religious one. In fact, I would argue that even for many moderate "believers," Christmas is more a cultural event than a religious event, although they would argue vehemently that's not true. Capitalism long ago overwhelmed this holiday, and now even slogans such as "Jesus is the reason for the season" are more marketing pitches than heartfelt sentiments. There's no other way to explain the massive consumer gorging that takes place between "Black Friday" and Christmas Eve. Many stores can make over half their yearly sales in this period, which lasts about 30 days.

I, too, will be contributing to the yearly bacchanal of commodities -- don't get me wrong. There's much that's wonderful about the holiday season -- in general people have a warmer glow about them, friends come together, and people seem more willing to help other people -- but I would ascribe that feeling more to the emotional high we get as consumers under capitalism than to any commitment to religious dogma -- otherwise, those feelings would last all year long.