The commoditization of holidays

Today I got a phone call from a journalist who wanted to know if I thought this holidays craze would last for much longer.

Were we going to see Santa Clause abused for months on end every winter season by advertising? I was feeling callous and said yes, that we were doomed to spend our holidays stuffing our baskets with things that would make us fatter and more unhappy, spending hours on end in queues and getting more loans to buy more stuff we really did not need. I said that holidays were a poor excuse for people to quench some deep rooted desires that communism had ferociously suppressed and that we were doomed to at least 10 more years of painful consumerism and silly holiday decorations...that holidays have turned evil.

and then I got home and I remembered my mother's st nick's cakes and the little gilded branch we always put in the window and the enthusiasm of coming home to a warm and well lit living room with mulled wine in big cups and my dad playing his silly music...

I miss those days when holidays were not evil.