The smells of pine and gingerbread are filling the air. Christmas lights glow bright on local homes, and a beautiful layer of snow lies on the ground. The holiday season has finally arrived and so has the abundance of commercials that come along with it.

Christmas brings in more revenue for business than any other holiday. Black Friday is a perfect example of people becoming overly consumed by the media’s influence on the Christmas holiday. While some were still celebrating Thanksgiving with their families, others were out in the cold, waiting in lines for stores to open so they can buy gifts for their friends and families for Christmas.

The tradition of Santa Claus and supplying people with several gifts on Christmas day is celebrated in many houses all over the world. While it is a great idea to show loved ones you care through giving them gifts, it is also not what Christmas is truly about. Many families that are non-christian have started celebrating Christmas and are participating in the traditions that Christmas holds, such as waiting for Santa and buying presents, but what is the real reason that Christmas has become so popular among other religions?

The media do not show enough support for religious holidays outside of Christmas. Holidays such as the Jewish holiday Hanukkah and the Pan-African holiday Kwanzaa are just a couple holidays near the Christmas season that many times get overlooked by the media because of all of the attention being focused on Christmas.

America is a melting pot of people from all different nations, ethnicities and religions, but as the media continue to primarily focus on Christmas this holiday season, people with religious backgrounds other than Christianity may feel out of place.

A ten-year-old girl in school, for example, shows up for the class Christmas party before they are let out of school for the semester. They watch movies about Santa and eat candy canes. The only problem is that the little girl and her family do not celebrate Christmas. The little girl should not be punished for the fact that she doesn’t celebrate Christmas and should still get to participate in the school party, but what happens when she goes home that night and asks her parents why Santa doesn’t come to her house?

Christmas is my favorite holiday. I love to see the lights on the houses and spend time with my family next to the Christmas tree just as much as the next person, but the media and advertisers have managed to suffocate Americans so much with the Christmas culture, people who do not celebrate Christmas may feel like they are being discriminated against, and some may even begin to partake in the Christmas traditions. 

This is not a people problem, but an advertising and media problem. What I do not want to see is for people to stop putting a Christmas tree in the window in fear that they might offend someone of a different religion, but rather people should be able to feel confident enough to embrace their own holidays without feeling like they need to conform to the Christmas culture.