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AROUND THIS time of year, it is impossible to avoid commercials raving about great holiday sales and shoppers rushing around madly looking for the best deal. Christmas is basically shoved down the throats of shoppers every few seconds with obnoxious music, goofy decorations and holiday sales. It is also impossible to avoid grumpy adults freaking out about how they are going to have to go into debt after Christmas.
All of this is not what makes me hate Christmas, but rather what Christmas has become. It seems that the only people who get excited about the holidays anymore are little kids. Everyone else just gets stressed out. Things were not always this way, though. Families used to look forward to this time of year as an escape from their day-to-day lives. It was a time to spend time with friends and family, rest, honor religious practices and eat good food. Now, it just means last-minute shopping and scrambling to buy gifts that the recipient might not even like.
As a pending adult, I refuse to give up my love for the holiday season and become bitter. I thought this would be really hard, until I realized that the presents have always been a tiny part of what I enjoyed about Christmas. When I was little, it was always the excitement of going to my grandma's, the snow, the beautiful lights and decorations, and the happy feeling that accompanies this time of year. That's not to say that as a child I did not delight in gifts--but as I get older and learn that lots of things are more important than material possessions, Christmas has more and more appeal to me.
This season is about giving, but no one ever said anything about spending. Doing something for someone you love, or spending time with them, will probably end up meaning more to them than a store-bought gift that they may end up eventually throwing away. And if there is someone you feel "obligated" to buy a gift for but you do not really care about, it is perfectly acceptable to opt out. If they are the kind of person who would hold a thing like that against you, they probably were not worth trying to please anyway.
Honestly, the best gift to give this time of year to a stressed-out adult pulled under by the tide of consumerism is to try to share the true spirit of the season with them. Tell them you don't need anything major this year because you are trying to reduce the amount of junk you have in preparation for moving to college, or try to get them into the spirit in some way besides shopping and buying.
Remember: Don't hate the time of year--hate the stress. And the stress is optional. It is perfectly within the means of everyone who is stressing about having an extravagant Christmas to have a moderate, enjoyable holiday season.
Addison Herron-Wheeler is a senior at James Monroe High School.