The Russians Have Hacked Christmas!

Let me explain first, I am not a Christian, I follow a more spiritual or maybe agnostic path, possibly sprinkled with a little science just for good measures (but, that’s not important right now).  However, when it came to the “Holidays”, I was raised with a leaning towards Christianity, so we celebrated Christmas.  I do, however, enjoy and respect many of the aspects of other holiday celebrations—Kwanzaa, Hanukah or maybe even Winter Solstice.

Christmas has a history of both Christian and secular traditions, but I am not going to get into all of that here.  What I am going to talk about is the change of Christmas from a celebration of beliefs and spirit to that of materialism.  Christmas has become a contest to see who can put the most presents under the highly coveted Christmas tree.  Every year the most widely read Christmas material as it turns out is the shopping list.  From the post-Halloween discussions to the last minute, frantic calls in December, the Christmas shopping list has become a sacred document.

So, what caused the change from seasonal joy to holiday heartburn?  Many people today do not even fully understand what the holidays stand for: peace on earth, goodwill towards men or any other traditional meanings.  We go through the motions every year, but they have become so mechanized that we don’t even realize there is a holiday, except for the need to shop.  Christmas has simply become a date on a calendar where we all struggle to get family outings on the schedule and pray that we bought the right gifts.

I have a theory; Since 2016 we have been told that everything has been hacked by Russian trolls, this is especially true of our presidential election.  So, doesn’t it make sense that 14 Russians hackers (via social media) have destroyed our beloved Christmas?  Maybe they have influenced us through hypnotic ads that have sent us into this commercially induced coma.  Maybe this was the plan, to destroy us from within, using the most celebrated holiday on the planet.

Ok, all of you who believe that, raise your hands.  Of course, this is absurd, we have been heading down this path for over fifty years now.  The commercialization of Christmas began in the late 1960s and accelerated during the period of massive mall expansion.  The gluttony that has reached its apex with the bankruptcy of hundreds of retail businesses.  Greed is the sole actor in what has changed a holiday of happiness and cheer into a graph that measures us like sand through an hourglass.

Retailers became corporate behemoths whose only objective was profits, ultimately leaving millions jobless in the wake of it’s collapse.  Christmas became the opportunist holiday, where customers would be preyed upon by countless thousands of holiday advertisements, sales flyers and finally the dreaded “Black Friday”, a disease that has given a new name to compulsion.

I have viewed some of the other holiday celebrations first hand and for the most part, they have remained intact and have totally avoided this affliction that destroys meaning.  Isn’t time for all of us still celebrating Christmas to reinvent ourselves, to begin embracing what is good in life (while we still can) and simply enjoy each other and our love for life?  Maybe stop spending 3 months every year agonizing about what materialistic shit everyone wants or needs?  With the death of malls, this condition is not going away, instead, we now use the internet to make a freakin billionaire an even bigger billionaire.  We just serve a new master now!

As we celebrate the holidays this year and every year after, my hope is that we can begin to look for a better meaning in life, that people can begin to enjoy life again for its simplistic pleasures and meaning.  I hope that we can come up with leaders who will value people and not the dollar over people.  And lastly, stop blaming the Russians!  To you all, I wish the best of holidays (no matter which one you celebrate), peace on earth and goodwill to all…………Happy Holidays!

Talk To Ya Later

The Grumpy Old Fart Customer @2018 All Rights Reserved