True Meaning of the Holiday Season

By: Olivia Hamel

Although, the holiday season is portrayed as a joyous time when cares are forgotten and charitable ways are encouraged through “holiday cheer,” this cheerfulness that is brought on by the season seems to be a façade. This façade is created often times through our commercializing culture: holiday adds on television and tunes on the radio. It seems as if it is the way of our culture to push this holiday season onto everybody, but for the wrong reasons. These ads shown on T.V. all promote the buying of gifts, and in this action of buying gifts for your loved ones it is presumed that happiness will follow. It is all due to these pushy ads that we forget what the holiday season is all about: charity, hope, faith and love.

I do not only make these assumptions from afar, but I make them from a place where I can observe consumers during the holiday season. I work at a small grocery store located in the town in which I live. Through the seasons there are clear points in which fluctuation in the frequency that shoppers visit the store is noticeable. As the holiday season approaches the store is often times packed and registers are maxed out with customers. Not only does the number of shoppers visiting the store increase, but the number of food vouchers increases as well. For those who are unfamiliar with the term, “food vouchers,” they are pieces of paper relinquished by the local food pantry to more needy members of the community; in order to help them purchase basic items that are needed to have a balanced diet, such as milk, eggs and bread. Having a burst of food vouchers being used during the holiday seasons leads me to assume what is backed up by certain economic reports. Our economy is struggling at this current time and with the struggling economy the people who participate in said economy are struggling as well.

To be witness to the fact that people in my community are struggling economically, especially during the holiday season, disheartens me. I am disheartened so because of the fact that we as a culture push the more superficial aspect of the holidays rather than the more emotional aspects. Here people are struggling just to purchase groceries and we advertise that, “your Holiday will be incomplete without presents.” This puts incredible pressure onto those who have sparse funds, creating incredible stress.

However, as I am an everyday witness to the holiday season struggle and hardships, I was once fortunate enough to be witness to what the holiday season is truly about. Last year around this same time in the season I was working on of my regular shifts, after school. And, as usual for the season, I had received many vouchers that night. As the night moved on it was hard not to ponder about the economic status of our nation and how it was disheartening especially in light of the season. In the midst of one of my pondering sessions, two customers entered my line. I presumed that the two were mother and daughter due to their proximity to each other and the manner in which they were interacting. They had a relatively small amount of groceries, which amounted to a total of about twenty dollars. However, although the total was relatively small it appeared as if they hadn’t brought enough money along with them to meet their purchases. The mother relayed this to me and asked if she could put a few items away. In the midst of her request a man, who I had only just noticed after he stepped forward, offered to pay for their entire purchase stating that, “I’ve got this order too.” Looking astonished that the man had offered such a generous act towards them, the mother first tried to politely decline. To this polite decline, the man was firm and kept on insisting that I include his items with theirs and he would pay the entire bill. I complied with his insistence all the while holding back tears: this man (presumably) did not know this family that he so charitably purchased groceries for. That act, to me, embodied the true spirit of the season: to be charitable to others who are less fortunate than yourself and find fulfillment in the fact that you are able to add some amount of cheer to their holiday. As the new holiday season is comes around I try to follow in the footsteps of that gracious man and help and give to others less fortunate than myself. I do not want to lose the true meaning of the holiday season, and it is my hope that others will take the true meaning in to consideration as well, for then the holiday season will, in actuality, become “complete.”